For immediate release:
July 26, 2011

For more information, contact:
Lee Anne George
Publications Program Officer
Association of Research Libraries
202-296-2296
leeanne@arl.org

Library User Experience, SPEC Kit 322, Published by ARL

Washington DC—The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published Library User Experience, SPEC Kit 322, which explores recent and planned user experience activities at ARL member libraries and the impact these efforts have on helping the libraries transform to meet evolving user needs. The survey elicited examples of successful user experience activities to serve as benchmarks for libraries looking to create or expand efforts in this area. It also explored whether libraries have created positions or entire departments focused on user engagement and the user experience.

The survey results revealed that nearly all of the responding ARL member institutions are employing a form of user engagement, whether or not they refer to it as user experience. While there appears to be a lack of common vocabulary or program standardization, there is a growing awareness of the need to assess libraries from the user perspective—with new positions and even departments created to accomplish this goal. Overall, respondents feel that efforts made in assessing the user experience are well spent. They articulated numerous projects that resulted in major program updates and facility revisions and that were well received by library administration, governing/funding boards, and most importantly, by library users.

This SPEC Kit includes documentation from respondents that describe user experience planning and organization, specific projects, how volunteers are recruited, the role of advisory boards, and job requirements for user experience coordinators, among others.

The table of contents and executive summary from this SPEC Kit are available online at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/spec-322-web.pdf.

ORDERING INFORMATION


SPEC Kit 322, Library User Experience
Robert Fox and Ameet Doshi • July 2011 • ISBN 1-59407-864-5 • 200 pp. • $45 ($35 ARL members)

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SPEC KITS EXCHANGE INFORMATION


Designed to examine current research library practices and policies and serve as resource guides for libraries as they face ever-changing management problems, each SPEC Kit contains a summary analysis, survey questions with tallies, pertinent documentation from participating libraries, and a reading list and Web site references for further information on the topic.

SUBSCRIBE TO SPEC!


2011 SPEC Kit subscription (ISSN 0160-3582): $225 ARL member/$300 nonmember, six issues per year, shipping included (additional postage may apply outside North America).

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 126 research libraries in the US and Canada. 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/.