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CSCU Assessment Toolkit

This Toolkit was developed by the CSCU Library Consortium’s Assessment Team in response to their charge of recommending best practices of implementing assessment data and analysis toward student success.

Guiding Question: How and when do students want to use the library?

Door Counts

While studies have shown a statistically significant correlation between academic library use and individual student success, the relationship between general library use and overall student success is more elusive.  In addition, it is not practical, and in many cases not possible to distinguish between students and staff using the library; people leaving the library to use the restroom and immediately returning; students cutting through the library on their way to other areas of the building; and other "uses" that would register on a door counter but not indicate a use of the library's resources.

Door count data can be used to look at longitudinal trends in activity and can be used to help make staffing decisions, however it is best when used as one part of a larger picture of library space usage.

Space usage: How are students using our spaces? Who is and who isn't using the library?

The following are two examples of how to assess how students are using library spaces and who isn't using the library space.

The University of Rochester study is a classic example of library space analysis. Fairfield University has also done significant work in this area.

Accessibility Statement
“Open CSCU” by the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 International License. The individual items included are subject to their respective license provisions.