Interim Head, Assessment & User Experience Strategy Department
Assessment & User Experience Strategy Department, Duke University Libraries
December 2021-present
In the fall of 2021, I was asked to serve as interim head of the Assessment & User Strategy Department as a result of vacancies and cascading interim appointments in other areas of the Libraries.
Assessment and User Experience Leadership
- In consultation with members of AUXS and the Assessment Core Team (ACT), lead or decide to pause initiatives including user satisfaction surveys, in-depth user studies, university assessment reporting, and student advisory boards
- Consults with library staff as they use data and study findings to plan and make decisions about library services, spaces, and collections; advocates for changes that would improve the experience of library users, including members of underrepresented or marginalized groups
- Initiates, collaborates, and advises on cross-departmental quantitative and qualitative user studies; follows best practices in the ethical design of studies and analysis of user data
- Provides vision for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data to support decision-making and strategic planning across the Libraries; provides direction for integrating and automating the Libraries’ quantitative data sources where feasible
Technical Leadership
- Identify and document technology needs for systems that support the Libraries’ strategic goals, with particular focus on the areas of web content platforms, discovery systems, and reporting infrastructure
- Collaborate across departments to support consistent and transparent documentation of project priorities, requirements, expectations, objectives, challenges, and results
- Contribute to oversight of project prioritization and Scrum processes
Departmental Management
- Supervise six full-time AUXS staff members and several part-time student employees and volunteers (including recruitment, onboarding, general supervision, regular check-in meetings, performance evaluation, and routine management tasks such as handling professional development requests, monthly leave reports, and any HR-related needs)
- Coordinate AUXS department meetings on a regular basis and organize departmental goal-setting
- Partner with former department head to prepare and manage the departmental budget
- Attend DST Leadership Team meetings and report information to AUXS staff as appropriate
- In consultation with AUXS staff and as requested by DUL admin, complete departmental annual reports