Collection Assessment for the
Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE)
What is Collection Assessment?
"Collections assessment" is the process of systematically comparing the scope and balance of a library's actual collection with the scope and balance of materials desired by the library users. In the case of DLESE, information about users' desires comes from analysis of requests to the Search and Browse functions of the DLESE Discovery System. DLESE assesses its collection along the dimensions of Topic, Grade Level, and Learning Resource type.
About the DLESE Collections Assessment Project:
The DLESE Collections Assessment Project is directed by Barbara DeFelice. Other participants are Neil Holzman and Kim Kastens at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Connie Rinaldo at Harvard, and John Weatherly and Ryan Deardorff at the DLESE Program Center. The project examined data from spring of 2002 through December 2004.
View DLESE Collections Assessment Data:
Total Collection
Grade Level (formerly called "Learning Context")
- Quarterly data
- Changes over time
Resource Type (formerly called "Learning Resource Type")
- Quarterly data
- bar graphs: detailed, by number
- bar graphs: aggregated, by number
- bar graphs: aggregated, by percentage
- pie charts: aggregated, by percentage
- Changes over time:
- Time series: aggregated, by number
Topic
- Quarterly data:
- bar graphs: browse only, by number
- bar graphs: browse only, by percentage
- bar graphs: search plus browse, by number
- Data on searches that returned zero resources
Reports
- Reports to NSF 2000-2002 (pdf)
Recommendations from DLESE Collections Assessment Project:
This website has been supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) grants DUE02-26292, DUE00-85839, and DUE02-26233. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.