Standards and Best Practices for Florida Academic Libraries

Management/Administration/Leadership: Library leaders engage in internal and campus decision-making to inform resource allocation to meet the library’s mission effectively and efficiently.

7.1 The library’s mission statement and goals align with and advance those developed by the institution.

7.2 Library personnel participate in campus decision-making needed for effective library management.

7.3 The library allocates human and financial resources effectively and efficiently to advance the library’s mission.

7.4 The library’s budget is sufficient to provide resources to meet the reasonable expectations of library users when balanced against other institutional needs.

7.5 The library partners with multiple institutions (e.g., via collections consortia) to increase cost-effectiveness and to expand access to collections.

7.6 The library plans based on data and outcomes assessment using a variety of methods both formal and informal.

7.7 The library communicates assessment results to library stakeholders.

7.8 Library personnel model a culture of continuous improvement.

7.9 The library has the IT infrastructure needed to collect, analyze, and use data and other assessments for continuous improvement.

"The Standards include performance indicators, which are intentionally library-centric. Outcomes, however, should be user-centric, preferably focusing on a specific population and articulating specifically what the user is able to do as an outcome of the performance indicator. "
- ACRL Standards for Libraries in Higher Education

Performance Indicator 7.2 Library personnel participate in campus decision-making needed for effective library management.

Sample Outcome

• Library administration participate on campus-wide decision-making committees.

Performance Indicator 7.7 The library communicates assessment result to library stakeholders.

Sample Outcome

• Faculty include the library’s assessment results in the program review process.

"Many academic institutions use benchmarks to identify their strengths and weaknesses in comparison to similar institutions. For example, benchmarking can be used to demonstrate whether an institution or its library is funded or staffed at levels comparable to similar institutions in a geographic area, with a similar enrollment, or with other related characteristics."
- ACRL Standards for Libraries in Higher Education

Principle 7: Management/Administration/Leadership

• Cost per hour open.
• Library expenditures percentages. E.g.: Salary and wages expenditures as percentage of total library expenditures. Materials expenditures as percentage of total library expenditures. Other operating expenditures as percentage of total library expenditures.
• Total operating expenditures per student. E.g.: Per full-time undergraduate student. Per full-time graduate student.
• Total expenditures per faculty. E.g.: Per full-time faculty. Per part-time faculty.

All ACRL information taken from:

Association of College and Research Libraries. (2018). Standards for libraries in higher education.

       Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/standards/slhe.pdf