Purpose & Goals

Efforts to collect data around and asses for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) services, practices, and initiatives in academic libraries have increased in the past five years, offering libraries opportunities to gain a better understand of the impact of their work in these areas. However, unlike data collected through national and standardized efforts such as the Academic Libraries Survey (ALS), there have been no unified or agreed upon efforts to collect and share EDI data. Most libraries who engage in EDI assessments enter into those processes individually and there are no attempts to share the data or findings more broadly. This, of course, limits opportunities for benchmarking or comparison of the data. But even if this data were available more globally, should it be compared and benchmarked like other types of nationally collected data?

Design & Methodology

The author, serving in a consultation role, had an opportunity to explore this question due to a recent project undertaken by the Oberlin Group to utilize the author’s DEISAA instrument across multiple member libraries in the group. As part of the planning, the author was asked to consider the merits of whether benchmarking and comparing results of a shared EDI audit process would be beneficial. This conceptual paper takes a reflective look at the decision-making process undertaken by the author to help the Oberlin group determine if a benchmarking aspect of their process would add value to their understanding of EDI efforts; or if the intersectional and individual variables that impact EDI efforts would inhibit the comparison of this data.

Conclusions

Based on this reflective exercise, that also included review of the literature and experience analyzing multiple separate DEISAA submissions from other libraries, the author determined that a traditional benchmarking approach would not carry the same expected benefits, but that there were potential positive outcomes that could be gained from doing a limited benchmarking/comparison exercise. This reflective study raises additional questions related to the value of benchmarking academic library data in general, as well as how libraries should approach applying elements of benchmarking specifically to EDI data.

Implications & Value

The implications of this conceptual paper and the findings shared revolve around the need for academic libraries to engage further in conversations around collection of EDI data, how this data is used, and what it means when we choose to compare ourselves across variables that may not be directly comparable.