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