From Data Collection to Story Telling: Building Our Library’s First Impact Report

This chapter will describe how a mid-sized academic library with limited resources and limited bandwidth for assessment work sought to move beyond simply meeting reporting obligations to proactively conveying impact through storytelling to library stakeholders in the library’s first-ever impact report. The authors describe their shifting institutional and library environment, including fiscal constraints, staffing changes, and shrinking library personnel, which made prioritizing assessment difficult, while it was also recognized that it was imperative to assert the library’s value. Reception to the report was positive, bolstering external perception of the library and shaping how stakeholders, including executive leadership and library donors, could carry our story forward. This action-oriented chapter provides encouragement that the time is right for any library to refresh their annual workflows for assessment, including giving readers the practical information needed to create an impact report in their institutional context.