EBL and Library Assessment: Two Solitudes?

• Main Author: Pam Ryan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Alberta 2006-12-01
• Series: Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
• Subjects: Evidence Based Practice; Operations Research; Mission Oriented Research
• Online Access: http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/136/177

As Booth notes in a recent commentary on the conceptual and practical links between performance measurement and evidence based library and information practice (EBLIP), there has been a discernable creep among segments of the library community that seemingly existed as two solitudes: those in evidence based librarianship (EBL) circles and those in the library assessment practitioners group (“Counting What Counts” 63). Beginning in 2005, individuals from one group have been showing up at the others’ conferences and events to discuss their methods, frameworks and processes. Are these separate movements within librarianship forming theoretical bridges? Is some sort of merger, fusion or takeover in the future? Or are these simply collegial discussions about our evidence‐based leanings in librarianship? Is all evidence based practice in librarianship, that is, some form of research‐derived data guiding the decision‐making of practitioners, subject to the theoretical framework proposed by the EBL movement? If so, are the tools and practices of library assessment rigorous enough, by EBL theory standards, to afford equal participation in these evidence‐based practice circles or will assessment practitioners forever be relegated to wallow as devotees of the lowest cells of Eldredge’s(2002) exploratory research evidence chart? If we are just now coming to understand our similarities, will our differences be enough that we wish never to be one movement and therefore forever remain as two solitudes in evidence‐based practice?