n. (also Archival Metrics)a set of survey tools created to help archivists develop standardized assessment programs to measure the impact of their services and systemsDuff and Cherry 2008, 501In October 2005, the Archival Metrics Project investigators and the Advisory Board, which consists of representatives from nine archival partner institutions, met in Ann Arbor to “determine the needs and desires for assessment tools for university archives and special collections.” Participants broke into smaller working groups, and each group identified tools that would help archivists assess aspects of their services and systems.Krause 2010, 509In 2008, the Archival Metrics project published a suite of standardized questionnaires to help college and university archives evaluate their services, website, online finding aids, and orientation sessions, but these measures are not yet widely adapted.Duff et al. 2010, 569This paper reports on the Archival Metrics Project, which developed, tested, and evaluated a set of toolkits designed to overcome some of the challenges of conducting user-based evaluation in college and university archival repositories. The Archival Metrics Project is ongoing. The initial toolkits result from a five-year, two-phase project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project involved academics from three North American universities and twenty partners from academic archival institutions.Gasero et al. 2011, 17We have decided to utilize the instruments available through the Archival Metrics Project for the majority of our assessment efforts. Developing this assessment plan has reinforced the importance of utilizing and tweaking tools and resources that are available because implementing such massive projects from the ground up is not always feasible.Bain et al. 2011, 20Standardized user metrics and tools are institutionalized in the Archival Metrics Projects. Ready for use now are the tools measuring use for university and college archives and special collections. Tools for measuring use of government archives will appear soon.Caswell, Cifor, and Ramirez 2016, 63In archival studies, the Archival Metrics project has provided detailed toolkits to help archivists and special collections librarians measure the economic impact of archives, as well as to assess the effectiveness of online finding aids and teaching tools.SAA 2020cWHEREAS Archival Metrics promoted a culture of assessment in the profession with its creation of survey questionnaires and other performance measures that assist archivists in measuring and articulating the value and impact of their tools and services; and ¶ WHEREAS Archival Metrics has produced seven easy-to-use, publicly available, user-based evaluation toolkits that cover a broad range of archival services and tools (online finding aids, repository websites and access tools, student orientations, use of archives in teaching and instruction, economic impact of government archives, and use of the focus group method in data collection) . . .
Notes
The project received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and National Historical Publications and Records Commission. The principal investigators were Elizabeth Yakel (University of Michigan), Wendy Duff (University of Toronto), and Helen Tibbo (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), who received a Council Exemplary Service Award from the Society of American Archivists in 2020.The toolkits resulting from Archival Metrics are available at https://sites.google.com/a/umich.edu/archival-metrics/the-toolkits.
