Focus on Assessment - Sep 13, 2010

In July, while attending the National Diversity in Libraries Conference at Princeton,
NJ, I went to a session presented by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) staff on
ClimateQUAL® (http://www.climatequal.org/). ClimateQUAL® is one of an increasing number
of tools in the ARL assessment toolkit. Other assessment tools offered by ARL include
LibQUAL+®, StatsQUAL®, DigiQUAL®, and MINES for Libraries® (love their graphics!).
Additional assessment tools are being explored by ARL such as Balanced Scorecard, Scenarios,
ARL profiles text analysis, and ROI/ LibValue. Most if not all of these will be reported on at the
upcoming ARL Library Assessment Conference in Baltimore.

ClimateQUAL® is an internal-looking survey of employee perceptions. The presenters pointed
out that healthy organizations have healthy climates, and employees have shared perceptions of
the important organizational imperatives – what the organization expects, rewards, and supports.
Customers can sense what’s going on in organizations, which is a good reason why employees
and managers should care about climate. ClimateQUAL® is an indicator of what you can
improve in terms of climate, which will improve the user’s experience. Where LibQUAL+®
surveys customers, ClimateQUAL® surveys internal employees.

It is important to realize that there is a positive correlation between climate and a user’s service
perceptions. ClimateQUAL® has 16 core scales, such as climate for leadership, climate for
justice/fairness, climate for customer service, and climate for demographic diversity. The
University of Maryland has implemented the survey three times to date, and 27 libraries are
currently participating in the survey in 2010. Others who have participated in the past include the
University of Iowa, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Nebraska, and the University of
Arizona. After reviewing the results of their ClimateQUAL® surveys, these organizations took
steps to respond to the results. For example, the University of Connecticut included metrics for
improvements to scores in their strategic plan, and Johns Hopkins University created institutional
teamwork checklists.