Download: Compilation of Keynote papers -- preprint Library Quarterly, Jan 2011
Plenary I – Maryland ABE, Monday, 9:15-10am
Fred Heath, University of Texas
Library Assessment: The Way We Have Grown
Fred Heath is Vice Provost and Director of the University of Texas Libraries, a position he has held since 2003. He has served in similar capacities at Texas A&M University, Texas Christian University and the University of North Alabama during his career of 30+ years in librarianship.
Fred currently serves as board chair of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL). He has also served as president of the board of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), The Virginia Library Association (VLA) and chair of the Texas Council of State University Librarians (TCSUL). Service on the boards of the Coalition of Networked Information, SPARC, and the steering committee of the Digital Library Federation (DLF) are among other national appointments.
He makes frequent presentations and publishes in the areas of digital library trends, evolving user needs, and service quality issues. He is a co-developer of the widely employed service quality assessment tool (LibQUAL+®). Fred also serves or has previously served on the editorial boards of The Journal for Library Administration, Library Quarterly, Libraries & the Cultural Record and College and Research Library News. He served as editor of Library Administration and Management. A list of presentations and publications can be found on the UT Libraries web site.
He earned his library degree at Florida State University, earned his doctorate at Virginia Tech University and has additional degrees from the University of Virginia (M.A) and Tulane University (B.A.). He served the United States as an Air Force officer during the era of the Vietnam conflict.
Plenary II – Maryland ABE, Monday, 10:30am-noon
Megan Oakleaf, Syracuse University
Are They Learning? Are We? Learning Outcomes & the Academic Library
Megan Oakleaf is an Assistant Professor in the iSchool at Syracuse University where she teaches “Reference and Information Literacy Services” and “Planning, Marketing, and Assessing Library Services.” Her research interests include outcomes assessment, evidence-based decision making, information literacy instruction, information services, and digital librarianship. She is also on the faculty of the ACRL Institute for Information Literacy Immersion Program. Oakleaf completed her dissertation entitled, “Assessing Information Literacy Skills: A Rubric Approach,” at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Previously, Oakleaf served as Librarian for Instruction and Undergraduate Research at North Carolina State University. In this role, she trained fellow reference librarians in instructional theory and methods, provided library instruction for the First-Year Writing Program and First-Year College, and spearheaded the development of the LOBO tutorial. Prior to a career in librarianship, Oakleaf taught advanced composition in Ohio public secondary schools.
Danuta Nitecki, Drexel University
Space Assessment as a Venue for Defining the Academic Library
After nearly four decades, Danuta A. Nitecki has returned to where she began her library education by coming to Drexel University this year as Dean of Libraries and Professor in its College of Information Science and Technologies. In between she held administrative positions in the academic libraries of the Universities of Tennessee, Illinois, Maryland and Yale. The topic of her keynote merge two of her favorite interests – library spaces and research. She has directed library program development as an administrator or consultant, or otherwise participated in nearly a dozen library renovation or construction projects. These have included construction and renovation of standalone facilities for shelving print volumes as well as traditional book stacks, renovation of entire libraries, and design and renovation of iconic reading rooms as well as innovative learning commons. At Drexel, she has been conducting a review of library space needs as part of efforts to transform and redefine its academic library to align with a momentum that US News & World Report ranks as the country’s second “up and coming” university to watch. As an Associate University Librarian at both Yale University and University of Maryland, she provided overall leadership for the Library's core public services to ensure access to its collections and information resources for research, teaching, and learning, and to strengthen the impact of the Library on education. This alignment of the library service offerings with university missions always involved attention to space. Her assessment interests and teaching of research methods and evaluation were grounded by her education; Danuta earned a PhD in Library and Information Science and two Master of Science degrees. Her professional activities include publications, presentations at international conferences, consulting, editorial board service, teaching and development of graduate courses.
Plenary III – Maryland ABE, Tuesday, 8:30-10am
Stephen Town, University of York, UK
Value, Impact and the Transcendent Library: Progress and Pressures in Performance Measurement and Evaluation
Stephen Town is Director of Information and University Librarian at the University of York, UK, including responsibility for its Libraries, Archives and IT Services. Prior to joining York Stephen worked for Cranfield University at the Defence Academy of the UK where he was responsible for libraries, media services and e-learning development. He began his career in the NHS after education at Cambridge and Loughborough Universities.
Stephen has also been active in research and development, and in providing consultancy and advice within the UK and internationally in the fields of performance, measurement, management, strategy, information literacy and e-learning. Stephen has taught at postgraduate level in the Universities of Bristol, Sheffield and Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona).
Stephen was until 2008 Chair of SCONUL’s Working Group on Performance Improvement and has led projects on benchmarking, information literacy measures, LibQUAL+®, and value and impact measurement for SCONUL. Stephen is a member of international conference and journal editorial boards in the library evaluation field, is a member of the LibQUAL+ Steering Committee, and has presented and written widely on library matters.
Joe Matthews, JRM Consulting
Assessing Organizational Effectiveness: The Role of Frameworks
President of JRM Consulting, Joe has provided consulting assistance to numerous academic, public and special libraries and local governments.
Until recently, he was also an instructor at the School of Library Information Science (SLIS) at San Jose State University. Joe taught evaluation of library services, library information systems, strategic planning, management and research methods. He was selected as the SLIS Outstanding Scholar in 2008.
In addition to numerous articles, he is the author of Library Assessment in Higher Education, The Customer-Focused Library, The Evaluation and Measurement of Library Services, and Measuring for Results among other books.
Joe is an invited conference speaker and is active in the American Library Association. A dedicated grandfather, Joe resides in Carlsbad, CA.
