IHE Report: “Academic Librarians Oppose Plan to Eliminate Key Federal Data”

From Inside Higher Education:

The U.S. Department of Education’s plan to drop data on libraries as part of its main postsecondary data system has generated intense blowback from academic librarians.

The federal government’s collection of data about the nearly 3,700 academic libraries as part of its longitudinal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) is “critical to understanding the value libraries provide to the institutional mission,” said a joint public comment letter from the American Library Association, Association of College and Research Libraries, Association of Research Libraries, and the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries. They urged the U.S. Education Department to sustain the library survey component as part of IPEDS.

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“NCES considers multiple factors prior to making adjustments, including legislative requirements, policy implications/use of data elements, the utility of data for consumer information, and data that are responsive to current questions in postsecondary education,” DeLaRosa said. “Based on our analysis, we concluded the need to phase out the Academic Libraries Survey.”

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Judy Ruttenberg, senior director of scholarship and policy for the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), said that because the proposal didn’t offer much explanation about why the NCES wants to eliminate the academic library survey from IPEDS, she’s trying to fill in the blanks.

“We’re left to surmise two ideas: That the data isn’t highly used and that the data represents a burden to collect,” she said. (The burden on survey takers is indeed one of the reasons NCES cited in its response to Inside Higher Ed about why it wants to eliminate the library component.)

Learn More, Read the Complete Article (about 1280 words)

See Also: Statement: ARL, ALA, ACRL, and ASERL Partner to Urge the National Center for Education Statistics to Retain Vital Academic Library Survey in IPEDS (May 3, 2024)

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