ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

Tips for librarians planning for accreditation visits

1. Make sure you have all relevant materials available from your regional accrediting agency. These may include criteria or standards, guides for self-study, or other publications prepared for aspects of self-study. Read them and note those sections which pertain to the library.

2. Press for adequate representation of thelibrary on the steering committee as well as other relevant committees.

3. Take the self-study process seriously. Itshould be an opportunity for the library staff to reflect, learn, and grow. The process can be an opportunity for an internal planning effort. It can also be a learning experience about the library for your institution’s faculty.

4. Make sure you understand your institution’smission and goals and can demonstrate how the library helps to fulfill them.

5. All accrediting agencies are stressingaccountability and outcomes assessment. The accrediting visit is a golden opportunity for your library to assess its outcomes. Ed. note: ACRL’s Measuring Academic Library Performance: A Practical Approach (Chicago: ALA, 1991) contains field-tested, easy-to-use output measures that can help you with this.

6. Your self-study should be cogent, clear,and explicit. Avoid generalities and hyperbole. Brevity is a virtue.

7. Highlight your library’s strengths. However, be assured that no institution or library is perfect and that the visiting team will not expect perfection. Be honest about your library’s shortcomings, but also be prepared to discuss your strategies for overcoming them.

8. Go beyond the traditional library plaintof “need more money, more books, more staff.” Everyone’s already heard that.

9. Educational equity and diversity in yourcollection and staff should be noted as appropriate.

10. Your self-study should not include just traditional items such as number of volumes or hours open, but should reflect changes in libraries such as networking, resource sharing, expedited document delivery, etc.

11. Make certain that the accreditationteam has access to documentation that supports the claims made in the self-study.

12. A scrapbook of all library publications—including BI handouts, bookplates, programs—is helpful for the team to examine.

13. Press your institution to ask for a librarian to be on the visiting team.

14. Take die opportunity to use die visitingteam as consultants. Ask their ideas for solving problems; they likely won’t offer unless asked.

15. Finally, consider the possibility of serving as an evaluator for your regional agency. You’ll learn and your colleagues will profit.

Based on contributions from accreditation veterans: Mignon Adams (Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science), Keith Cottam (University of Wyoming), Ron Leach (Indiana State University at Terre Haute), Alice Schell (Middle States Association), David Walch (California Polytechnic University), and Joan Worley (Maryville College). ■