NASIG Newsletter

[Ed. note: Highlights from the January committee report to the Executive Board.]

EVALUATION & ASSESSMENT
Anne Mitchell, Chair

The Evaluation & Assessment Committee believes that the transition to online [conference] evaluations has been a success and recommended that evaluations be electronic-only beginning in 2008.  The Executive Board approved this recommendation at their October meeting.

[Ed. note: Highlights from the fall committee report to the Executive Board.]

EVALUATION & ASSESSMENT
Anne Mitchell and Lori Terrill, Co-Chairs

The online [conference] evaluations were a success, thanks in part to vigorous promotion by the volunteers at the conference desk.  The 54% response rate was a slight increase over the previous year, and all but a handful of evaluations were submitted online.  The committee recommends online-only conference evaluations in 2008.

NASIG member Lisa Blackwell was the winner of the evaluation drawing, as announced on NASIG-L.  The list of respondents was pulled into a spreadsheet and deduplicated (poster and preconferences evaluations were submitted separately, so some individuals appeared more than once).  188 names remained, and the website random.org was used to generate a random number between 1 and 188.  The resulting number corresponded to the winner’s position on the spreadsheet.

Committee member Carole Bell will be the contact person for speakers who wish to receive information about their individual session ratings and comments.

EVALUATION & ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE
Anne Mitchell, Chair

Committee members (2007):  Anne Mitchell, Chair (University of Houston), Lori Terrill, Vice-chair (University of Wyoming), Joe Badics (Eastern Michigan University), Carole Bell (Temple University), Jana Brubaker (Northern Illinois University), Sarah Corvene (Harvard Business School), Susan Davis (State University of New York, Buffalo), Lee Krieger (Library System of Lancaster County), Martha Spring (Loyola University)
Board Liaison:  Adam Chesler

In February the committee was informed that 2007 conference evaluations should again be available both in print and online so conference attendees would have a choice of evaluation format.  To encourage use of the online evaluation form, the Executive Board authorized a drawing for a free 2008 conference registration; anyone who submits an online evaluation is eligible for the drawing.

In April the committee created the print evaluation forms for the conference, preconferences, and poster sessions.  These forms were sent to the Conference Planning Committee for distribution.  To further encourage attendees to use the online evaluations, individual conference packets will not include the evaluation itself, but will contain an insert with the URL for the online evaluations.  A limited number of print evaluations will still be available on-site.

In May the committee developed the online evaluation forms.  In lieu of the custom-programmed evaluation site used in 2006, the committee is using the hosted survey product SurveyMonkey to build the online evaluations.  This tool requires no programming expertise and should greatly simplify survey creation from year to year.

The committee is working with the conference Web designer to provide a link from the conference site to the evaluations a week or so ahead of the conference.  An announcement will be made on NASIG-L when the evaluations are available.

2007 CONFERENCE EVALUATION SUMMARY REPORT
PLACE YOUR BET IN KENTUCKY:  THE SERIALS GAMBLE
May 31-June 3, 2007
Evaluation & Assessment Committee

NASIG’s 22nd annual conference was held in Louisville, Kentucky, at the Galt House Hotel.  The conference began with a selection of preconference workshops, held its opening reception at the Frazier International History Museum and finished up with a bus tour of historic Louisville.  This year’s conference again included a variety of vision, strategy, and tactics sessions.

Two hundred ninety-seven conference evaluations were submitted this year, a 54% response rate.  Although both print and online evaluation forms were available, attendees were strongly encouraged to submit their evaluations online.  98% of respondents used the online forms, and those who provided their names and contact information were automatically entered into a drawing for a free 2008 conference registration.  The winner of the drawing will be announced on NASIG-L.

CONFERENCE RATING

On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being high), survey respondents gave the 2007 conference a rating of 4.23.  The attendees rated the overall conference facilities and local arrangements at 4.20.  Comments indicated general approval of the hotel and environs.  The Louisville location rated slightly lower than Denver (4.51) at 4.18.  The meeting rooms (4.30) and hotel rooms (4.59) received a slightly higher rating than last year.  The meals (4.09) and breaks (3.84) rated somewhat lower than last year, and comments suggested that the distance between the break area and some of the meeting rooms made the breaks feel rushed.  Several respondents expressed a desire for more intuitive and Web-friendly program information online.

PROGRAMS
 

This year the conference presented three vision sessions.  Vision session 1, “The Evolution of Reading and Writing in the Networked Era” with Bob Stein received a 3.80 rating.  Vision session 2, “Hurry Up Please, It’s Time: State of Emergency” with Karen Schneider received a 4.18 rating.  The final vision session, “A New Approach to Library Service Discovery and Resource Delivery” with Daniel Chudnov rated a 3.95.

The eleven strategy sessions this year generated ratings from 3.63 to 4.49, with eight of the eleven sessions rating over 4.0.  The highest rating went to the panel discussion “From Tech Services to Leadership.”  The strategy sessions averaged an overall rating of 4.09.

There were sixteen tactics sessions offered at this conference.  Ratings ranged from 3.41 to 4.56 with nine sessions rated at 4.0 or higher.  The highest-rated tactics session was “Verbal Bourbon: Speaking Secrets to Intoxicate your Audience” presented by Jeff Slagel.  The tactics sessions averaged an overall rating of 4.01.

There were only thirty respondents for the poster sessions.  The overall rating for the poster sessions was 4.31, up from last year’s rating of 4.09.  The majority of respondents (21) felt they had enough time to visit the posters, although several respondents expressed a desire to have the posters up for a longer period and/or have another session with the presenters.  Ratings for the individual poster sessions ranged from 3.76 to 4.28.  The highest rating was for “The CONSER Standard Record” presented by Les Hawkins and Hien Nguyen.

There were four preconferences offered this year and all were very well received with ratings from 4.00 to 5.00.  The comments were overwhelmingly positive for all the sessions.  However, several of the preconference evaluations had a very low response rate (less than 25%), an issue that will be addressed with next year’s evaluation.

SPECIAL PROGRAMS
 

The Louisville conference continued a number of special programming events.  The user group meetings and informal discussion groups rated 3.82 and 4.05 respectively.  The overwhelming majority of respondents wanted both these types of sessions to continue.  The first timers/mentoring reception received a 4.25 rating; comments suggest that first-timers and mentors alike appreciate this event.  The brainstorming session received a rating of 3.23.  Many respondents felt that this type of session is generally useful for the organization, but this year’s topic (encouraging candidates to seek executive office) did not lend itself to open discussion or attract a diversity of viewpoints.  The business meeting (3.82) received approximately the same rating as last year; attendees greatly appreciated the brevity of the meeting.

DEMOGRAPHICS

As in past years, academic librarians represented the largest group (71%) of respondents.  This includes university (170), college (33) and community college (4) librarians.  Attendees from specialized libraries, including medical (13), law (10) and corporate libraries (10) represented the next-largest group (11%) of respondents.  The percentage of responses from the vendor and publisher community including subscription vendors (11), publishers (9), automated systems vendors (3), and database providers (1) was down from 12% last year to 8% this year.  The percentages of respondents from public libraries (7) and consortia (5) were slightly higher than last year; the percentage of responses from government, national or state libraries remained similar to previous years.  Six respondents chose the category “Other,” primarily attendees from museum libraries, research institutes and other categories not clearly defined in the list.

Most respondents were mid- to late-career librarians; 70% of respondents had seven or more years of serials-related experience, up from 65% last year.  Most were also repeat NASIG attendees; 45.3% of respondents had attended 1-5 previous conferences, and 21% had attended 6-10 previous conferences, similar to last year’s percentages.  First-time attendees represented 15.5% of respondents, down from 21% in 2006.

The overwhelming majority of respondents identified themselves as serials (153), electronic resources (104), catalog (89), or acquisitions (81) librarians.  The number of respondents identifying themselves as collection development librarians decreased from 69 in 2006 to 56 this year.  Twenty-two respondents identified themselves as paraprofessionals, an increase from 16 in 2006.  As usual, many respondents identified themselves with multiple categories and various “Other” designations.  Many of those who selected “Other” emphasized middle-management responsibilities that were not among the existing choices.

The Evaluation & Assessment Committee would like to thank everyone who took the time to fill out the evaluation forms.  Your comments and feedback are important as NASIG continues to strive to provide positive conference experiences.  We welcome suggestions regarding the evaluation forms.  Please address comments to Anne Mitchell, amitchell@uh.edu.

Submitted by:
2007 Evaluation & Assessment Committee
Joe Badics, Carole Bell, Jana Brubaker, Sarah Corvene, Susan Davis, Lee Krieger, Anne Mitchell (Chair), Martha Spring, Lori Terrill (Co-Chair), Alison Roth (Board Liaison)

EVALUATION & ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE ANNUAL REPORT (2006)

Committee members (2006):  Marla Baden, Chair (Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne), Joe Badics (Eastern Michigan University), Carole Bell (Temple University), Jana Brubaker (Northern Illinois University), Sarah Corvene (Harvard College), Sandy Folsom (Central Michigan University), Carole McEwan (University of California, Berkeley), Anne Mitchell, Co-Chair (University of Houston), Lori Terrill (University of Wyoming)

Board Liaison: Adam Chesler 

The Evaluation & Assessment Committee’s main charge is to produce, distribute, and assess evaluation forms for the annual conference. It is the only NASIG committee that operates on a calendar year basis.  The committee completed its responsibilities and assignments this year including a summary report on the 21st Annual Conference which appeared in the NASIG Newsletter, December 2006. In January, the committee was notified that the Executive Board had approved the implementation of online evaluations for the Denver conference with a $500 appropriation toward the project. It was decided that during the transition year, paper evaluation forms would still be made available so conference attendees would have a choice of evaluation format. 

In March, the committee created the print evaluation forms for the conference, pre-conferences, and poster session. These forms were sent to the Program Planning Committee to include in the conference packets. A version of each form was also forwarded to Stephanie Schmitt and the conference programmer to use as templates for the online forms. Although deadlines were tight the online forms were unveiled on the conference’s home page in time for the start of the 2006 conference. Many thanks need to go to Step Schmitt for all her liaison work between E&A and the conference programmer.  Committee members spent the month of July entering evaluation data from the conference. Three hundred and two conference attendees completed evaluation forms (conference, pre-conference, or poster) with 192 of those still being submitted in paper. Since the data entry from the paper forms could be done via the online forms instead of being constrained by the five license limitation as in the past, committee members Marla Baden, Joe Badics, Jana Brubaker, Sarah Corvene, Sandy Folsom, Carole McEwan, Anne Mitchell, and Lori Terrill all contributed to the effort. 

Once the data had been entered Stephanie Schmitt worked with Paul Seeman to create the final results reports. The reports were placed in a password protected directory on the NASIG Web site. The Executive Board, chairs of the Conference Planning Committee, and chairs of the Program Planning Committee were sent the report access information in September.  

Also in September twenty-six speakers received individual summaries of their evaluation reports via email. This work was managed by Carole Bell who both extracted and distributed the information to the requesting speakers.  This year there was a slight delay in distributing any evaluation data including the usual preliminary summary report. However, now that the format programming has been done for creating the final report, the committee should be able to distribute future conference evaluations promptly after the conference. This will eliminate the work of having to create the past “Quick & Dirty” report. In the future the Executive Board, CPC, and PPC will have much quicker access to the complete conference data for planning purposes.  

The Evaluation & Assessment Committee believes that the transition to online evaluations was a successful venture and recommends discontinuing all paper evaluation forms. The Committee asks the Executive Board to give its approval for a totally online evaluation process for the 2007 conference.

[Ed. note: Highlights from a report submitted for the fall Executive Board meeting.] 

EVALUATION & ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE
Marla Baden and Anne Mitchell, Co-Chairs 

Though online conference evaluation forms were available this year, 192 paper forms were submitted.  The committee converted this data to electronic format in July.  When this task was completed, committee consultant Stephanie Schmitt worked with programmer Paul Seeman to create the evaluation reports.  E&A requested clarification from the Executive Board on guidelines for distribution of evaluation reports. 

Conference speakers received individual summaries of their evaluation reports via email during August and September. 

The committee recommended to the board that evaluations for the 2007 conference be all online.

CONFERENCE EVALUATON SUMMARY REPORT
Marla Baden, Chair, Evaluation & Assessment Committee

EVALUATION & ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE
Marla Baden and Anne Mitchell, Co-Chairs 

Committee members: Joe Badics (Eastern Michigan University), Carole Bell (Temple University), Jana Brubaker (Northern Illinois University), Sarah Corvene (Harvard College), Sandy Folsom (Central Michigan University), Carole McEwan (University of California, Berkeley), Lori Terrill (University of Wyoming), Adam Chesler (Board Liaison). 

In January the committee was notified that the Board approved the implementation of online evaluations for the Denver conference with a $500 appropriation toward the project. The Online Registration Team (ORT) is overseeing the creation of the online forms and final report structure. Step Schmitt has been the liaison between ORT and E&A.  

During this time of transition to online, paper evaluation forms will still be made available. In March, the committee created the print versions of the overall conference, pre-conferences, and poster session evaluations. These were then sent to the Program Planning Committee to include in the conference packets. The final versions of the evaluation forms were also forwarded to the ORT to be used as templates for the online forms. 

The committee chair was notified by Elizabeth Lowe (Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville) that due to other responsibilities she was resigning her committee membership. At this time she will not be replaced.