The Librarian Activity Project: A Time Allocation Study of Academic Public Services Librarians

Typical internal assessment practices of academic libraries such as instructional or reference statistics can be valuable measures but provide a limited view of overall academic librarian impact. To examine librarian work more comprehensively and with emphasis on institutional outcomes, Indiana University Bloomington Libraries conducted a time allocation study of the activities of public services librarians. This article describes the goals, methods, and results of the Librarian Activity Project, which aimed to determine what librarian work activities can be accurately assessed to empirically demonstrate library value and impact.