For immediate release:
June 17, 2010
For more information, contact:
David Green
Association of Research Libraries
202-296-2296 x136
climatequal@arl.org
Washington DC—The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) invites participation in the ClimateQUAL® survey in 2011. ClimateQUAL®: Organizational Climate and Diversity Assessment (OCDA) is an online survey that collects information about staff perceptions concerning the organization’s commitment to the principles of diversity, staff perceptions of organizational policies and procedures, and staff attitudes. ARL and the University of Maryland (UM) Industrial/Organizational Psychology (I/OP) program have partnered to offer this protocol to the library community. ClimateQUAL® is currently seeking eight to ten US or Canadian institutions to participate in 2011. Please note that participants need to survey at least 50 part-time or full-time employees.
In 2007, the UM I/OP program and ARL began collaborating to create a capability to measure organizational climate and diversity, based on work undertaken at UM since 1999.
The resulting ClimateQUAL® instrument contains questions designed to provide an understanding of how organizational procedures and policies affect the organization’s climate and the impact that this has, in turn, on service quality in a library setting. The survey addresses a number of climate issues, such as diversity, teamwork, learning, and fairness as well as current managerial practices, and staff attitudes and beliefs.
To date, 28 institutions have partnered in the development of ClimateQUAL®. This initial research has led to the development of the model of the “healthy organization” and scales that help advance understanding of the relative conditions within the organization.
ClimateQUAL® is an assessment tool administered by the ARL Statistics and Measurement program. ARL launched a new Web site in March of 2009 for ClimateQUAL®. The site aims to provide information and useful resources for past, current, and potential participants. Continued work with partners is ongoing to develop “best practice” strategies for using the survey results as a tool for organizational and service improvement.
Libraries participating in ClimateQUAL® in 2011 are asked for the following support:
Assistance with project funding (2011 fee: $5000 per participant);
Assignment of a contact person to work with ClimateQUAL® throughout the project;
Commitment for the contact person to attend group meetings held in conjunction with the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference and/or ALA Midwinter Meeting;
Commitment to repeat the survey periodically to measure the impact of improvement strategies over time; and
Commitment to work with the ClimateQUAL®: OCDA community members to share strategies for using evidence based methods as a tool for organizational and service improvement.
Detailed information about the ClimateQUAL® protocol and further background—including recent articles, an FAQ, a 15-minute podcast by Professor Paul Hanges describing the theory behind ClimateQUAL®, reports about the UM Libraries’ survey results for 2000 and 2004, and a bibliography of relevant research publications—can be found at http://www.climatequal.org/.
Interested participants can meet with ARL staff in June during the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, DC.
For more information or to express interest in participating in spring 2011, please e-mail climatequal@arl.org.
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 125 research libraries in North America. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, facilitating the emergence of new roles for research libraries, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/.