College and Research Libraries Academic Library Regional Accreditation Mary F. Casserly The self-study documents of four academic libraries whose experiences with the regional accreditation self-study process ranged from unsuccessful to successful were analyzed. All four reports were pre- dominantly descriptive and focused on processes. The successful sites employed user or expert opinion as types of assessments in their reports. No relationships were found between success and the re- sources, capabilities, products, services, and classes of evaluation addressed, the number of assess- ment measures included, or the extent to which association standards were addressed. The libraries' annual reports were found to contain more quantitative assessments of processes and outputs than the self-study reports . he vast majority of academic li- braries are regularly involved, albeit to varying degrees, in the voluntary, nongovernmental process known as regional accreditation. Unfortunately, library administrators pre- paring for an impending accreditation re- view must rely almost exclusively on pre- vious experience for guidance. There has been little research on the library's role in, or response to, either the self-study or the peer review aspects of the accreditation process. The purpose of this article is to: (1) de- scribe the contents of the regional accredi- tation self-study reports prepared by four academic libraries that experienced differ- ent degrees of self-study success; (2) char- acterize these reports by comparing them to each other, to the libraries' annual re- ports, and to their regional accrediting as- sociation guidelines; and (3) suggest some implications for academic libraries and their regional accrediting associations. BACKGROUND The process of qualifying for association membership, i.e., of being accredited, is identical for all six regional accrediting as- sociations. All prospective member insti- tutions are required to conduct an institu- tional self-study. This phase of the accrediting process is then followed by re- view by a peer evaluation team consisting of faculty and educational administrators and other specialists from outside the in- stitution. Members of the peer evaluation team examine the document prepared as a result of the self-study process, visit the institution, and report their findings to the accrediting association. The decision to ac- cept an institution for membership is then made by the association on the basis of the self-study document, the peer evaluation team's report, and the institution's re- sponse to that report . The self-study process is intended by all six associations to serve as a means of fos- tering improvement and change. More specifically, its purposes are to: (1) help improve the institution and its programs; (2) incorporate ongoing, useful institu- tional research and self-analysis into pro- grams and the institution; and (3) serve as the foundation for planning efforts. 1 Al- though the design of the self-study pro- cess is not mandated (and numerous pat- terns and forms of self-study used by institutions undergoing regional accredi- Mary F. Casserly is head of collection development at the Sarah Byrd Askew Library, William Paterson College, Wayne, New Jersey 07470. 38 tation have been identified by Paul Dres- sel, Herbert Kells, and Grover Andrews), all of the associations require that the pro- cess be described and documented in a self-study report. 2' 3' 4 This report is then used by the peer evaluation team in its re- view of the institution and is intended for further use by the institution as part of its planning process. Critics of the regional accreditation pro- cess abound. They have been quick to point out that the process as a whole is ex- pensive and time-consuming5 and that in most institutions the self-study process does not become part of an ongoing, in- · creasingly sophisticated planning pro- cess. 6 The self-study reports have been characterized as primarily descriptions of process7 and as mere public relations doc- uments. 8 Further, it has been charged that the criteria included in these guidelines do not insure institutional quality and that they are not grounded in research or the- ory. 9 Examinations of the six regional accredi- tation associations' literature indicate that the quality of the academic library is re- garded as an important element in the overall excellence of the educational insti- tution. 10 However, few researchers have chosen to explore the library's involve- ment in the process by which such institu- tions demonstrate the quality of their pro- grams. Early studies of the accreditation process by Alan Covey and Morris Gelfand, as well as those more recently conducted by Dudley Yates and Ronald Leach, have focused on the process by which the Eeer review team evaluates the library .11 ' 12' 3' 14 With the exception, then, of Toni Kania's efforts to develop a model set of regional accreditation standards for aca- demic libraries, 15 the academic library's in- volvement in the institution's preparation for regional accreditation has been virtu- ally unexplored. DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY The data reported in this article were collected as part of doctoral research com- pleted in 1983.16 The purpose of this re- search was to investigate planned change processes in academic libraries and to identify factors associated with the sue- Academic Library 39 cess of ·one type of planned change pro- cess, the self-study. Employing a case- study methodology, this study compared and contrasted the self-study experiences (including the resulting reports) of two relatively successful and two relatively unsuccessful regional library self-study processes related to regional accredita- tion. The study relied heavily on interview data and required on-site visits by the re- searcher . For this reason the case-study sites were selected from those institutions in the Middle States and Northeastern ac- crediting associations, located in the re- gions most accessible to the researcher. The selection of the case-study sites be- gan with the examination of the recently completed institutional self-study docu- ments from institutions of higher educa- tion in two regional accrediting associa- tions. The directors of those libraries that, judging from the contents of these re- ports, had played active roles in their insti- tutions' self-study processes were subse- quently interviewed, and a brief profile of each library's self-study process was then constructed. Using these profiles, the li- braries were then classified into groups ranging from "good" to "poor," accord- ing to the level of librarian involvement in the self-study process, the number and magnitude of changes or improvements that were reported as resulting from the process, the sophistication of the perfor- mance and other measures included in the self-study report, and the availability of the data needed for the proposed study. Every effort was made to select sites that represented a wide variety of experience and differing levels of satisfaction with the self-study process. The four medium-sized libraries that were eventually selected had 221,000 to 357,000 volumes in their collections and between ten and sixteen professional staff members. The enrollments of the institu- tions they served ranged from forty-five hundred to eighty-six hundred full-time and part-time students. Three of the insti- tutions were accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Sec- ondary Schools, and one was a member of the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools; three were pub- 40 College & Research Libraries licly supported, and one was a private in- stitution. At all of the institutions the mas- ter's was the highest degree offered. The data were collected for this study using document analysis, and question- naires and interviews that incorporated the factors included in Kells' desired at- tributes of self-study and Jack Lindquists' adaptive development model of planned change. 17' 18 The questionnaire and inter- view responses enabled the researcher to compare the case-study sites on the basis of the outcomes of the process: organiza- tional changes and improvements, advice and recommendations for future actions, and benefits accruing to the libraries and librarians. The comparisons of the outcomes of the four self-study processes confirmed the fact that the sites had indeed experienced differing degrees of self-study success . While librarians at two of the sites could associate few, if any, outcomes or benefits with the accreditation-related self-study process, librarians at the other two sites identified such outcomes as increased in- ternal communications, better long-term planning, useful advice and recommenda- tions, and a variety of improvements in specific areas of library performance. The librarians at these two sites also realized organizational and personal linkage and ownership benefits. The difference in the extent to which the four sites realized outcomes and benefits from their self-study processes led to des- ignating them as sites A, B, C, and D, with A being the site where the fewest number of outcomes was realized and D, where the greatest number was realized. This continuum provides the frame of refer- ence for comparing the reports of the four sites . The reports generated at the sites were analyzed for the purpose of identifying the designs and procedures used during these self-study processes. To this end the following research questions were posed : a. What types of performance measures were employed for the library segment of the institutional self-study? b. Were these measures typical of the types of performance measures used by the libraries on an ongoing basis? January 1986 c. How do the performance measures used in the library self-study relate to the standards or guidelines provided by their regional accrediting association? The library self-study documents and annual reports were analyzed and then compared on the basis of the classes of evaluation, types of measurement assess- ments, and the specific resources, capabil- ities, products, services, and benefits that these documents addressed. In addition, each self-study document analysis was compared with an analysis of the state- ments on library standards issued by the appropriate regional accrediting associa- tion. Since neither the Middle States As- sociation nor the New England Associa- tion recommends specific methods of measuring or assessing library perfor- mance, these statements on library stan- dards could not be analyzed and com- pared with the libraries' self-study documents in terms of the types of mea- surement assessments employed. The four classes of evaluation employed by John Knightly in his study of library an- nual reports (see table 1) did not have to be modified in order to employ them in this study . 19 However, it was necessary to clar- ify the distinction between two of Knight- ly's types of assessments: assessment on the basis of "costs" and assessment on the basis of "quantifiable measures." These types proved difficult to apply dur- ing the document analysis because cost is a type of quantifiable measure. Therefore, as the measurement criteria listed in table 1 indicate, the seventh type of assessment in this study was called ''other quantifi- able measures," a category that included all quantifiable assessment measures with the exception of those expressed in mone- tary terms . RESULTS Types of Performance Measures Employed in the Self-Study Documents The self-study documents pertaining to the case-study sites are presented in table 2 in terms of the classes of evaluation, the specific resources, capabilities, products, services, or benefits addressed, the type of assessments employed, and the amount of text devoted to each of these. Academic Library 41 TABLE 1 FOUR CLASSES OF EVALUATION AND SEVEN TYPES OF MEASUREMENT CRITERIA Classes of Evaluation Examples of Resources, Capabilities, Products, Services, and/or Benefits Belonging to Each Class Inputs (Resources) Processes (Capability) Budget, Space, Salaries, Gifts Metl'\ods, Collections, Security, Catalog, Cooperative Arrangements, Staff Training, User Education, Policies, Planning/Organizing Uses of Services Outputs (Utilization) Impacts (Benefits) Impact on objectives of parent organization-learning, company perfor- mance, cost savings compared to use of alternate sources of information, stimulation of invention or productivity, improved decisions, improved level of education, better use of feisure Types of ~~asurement Criteria: Basis for Assessment Oser opm10n Expert opinion Ideal standards Comparison .with other organizations Costs Cost-effectiveness or cost-benefit relationships Other quantifiable measures TABLE2 ANALYSIS OF SELF-STUDY REPORTS BY CLASS OF EVALUATION AND TYPE AND NUMBER OF ASSESSMENTS Class of Resources, Capabilities, Description Products, Services, or Type (H) of Site Evaluation Benefits Addressed Assessments Employed A Input Space, Staff Description Space Other quantitative measures (2) Staff Comlaarison with stan ards (2) Budget Costs (1) Process Facilities and services, planning, allocation of library Description funds, user education, cooperative arrangements, selec- tion of materials, collection, collection appropriateness Facilities and use, collection adequacy User opinion (2) Collection size Comlaarison with stan ards (1) Shelf capacity, seating capacity, availability of facility, collection size Other quantitative measures ( 4) Output Collection and facility use Description Use of materials Other quantitative measures (3) B Input Staff, budget Description Staff Other quantitative measures (1) Budget Costs (2) Process Decision making, planning, staff development, renova- Description tion of facility, typing facilities, hardware collection, user instruction, coo:perative arrangements, collection development, catalogmg, collection Collection size, circulation process, accessibility of fac- Other quantitative ulty, audiovisual facilities, photocopying facilities, stu- measures (6) dent training Service to handicapped, security Expert opinion (2) H Lines of Text 16 4 4 6 164 6 7 13 19 17 82 4 16 158 17 2 42 College & Research Libraries January 1986 TABLE 2 Continued Oassof Site Evaluation Resources, Capabilities, Products, Services, Benefits Addressed C Input Budget, staff Budget Staff Space Process Cataloging, collection development policy formulation, selection of materials, cooperative arrangements, orga- nization of library, security, multimedia facilities, reno- vation of facility D Input Collection size Collection, adequacy, cooperative arrangements, user education Budget, staff, gifts, space Budget Budget, staff, gifts Budget, staff Budget, staff Budget, staff Process Organization of library, user education, computerized bibliographic services, cooperative arrangements, fUnd- raising efforts, hardware collection, catcilo~ng, collec- tion accessibility, selection of materials, government documents collection, archives and speciaf collections, audiovisual facilities, staff responsibility, and status Library services, user education, collection quality Collection quality and balance, planning, user educa- tion, communication with academic departments Seating capacity, curriculum collection, archives and special collections, periodicals collection Outputs Use of materials, use of curriculum center Use of curriculum center materials, use of library materi- als Description or Type (#) of #Lines Assessments Employed of Text Descri[1tion 13 Costs 1) 18 User opinion (1) 5 Other quantitative 2 measures (1) Description 76 Other quantitative 3 measures (1) User opinion (4) 18 Description 79 Costs (1) 3 Other quantitative 14 measures (4) Com/aarison with 16 stan ards (2) User opinion (2) 5 Expert opinion (3) 8 Description 133 User opinion (5) 21 Expert opinion (4) 14 Other 4ualitative mea- 12 sures ( ) Description 10 Other quantitative measures (2) 5 The self-study documents prepared at all sites included input and process classes of evaluation. Between two and four in- puts were assessed and described in each report, and the process class of evaluation was given the greatest amount of atten- tion in terms of both description and as- sessment. In all reports the capabilities and products assessed and described out- numbered the inputs plus outputs (if any) that were included . size) . Three of the four documents in- cluded information on library planning ac- tivities (sites A, B, and D); cataloging proc- esses (sites B, C, and D); selection of materials (sites A, C, and D); and either the circulating collection or the library col- Several processes were addressed by all of the sites: user education, cooperative arrangements (including interlibrary loans), and the collection (in terms of "lection in general (sites A, B, and D). A substantial number of processes were ad- dressed by only one report. The report prepared by sites A and D, the least and most successful sites, were the only self-study documents to include outputs. At site A the outputs addressed were the use of both the collection and the library building, while those at siteD were the use of the materials in the library col- lection and the use of the curriculum cen- ter and its collection. None of the self- study reports addressed any aspects of the impact class of evaluation, i.e., the extent to which the library's accomplished objec- tives actually meet the needs of the institu- tion. An examination of the ''classes of evalu- ation" column reveals that although a statement in the text of the document may have addressed a particular class of evalu- ation, it did not necessarily include a cor- responding "type of assessment." In quantitative terms, these descriptive statements accounted for 78 percent of the total text of the library self-study docu- ment prepared at site A, 89 percent at site B, 61 percent at site C, and 68 percent at site D. The number of assessments included in the documents ranged from a low of eight at site C to a high of twenty-eight at site D . The only assessments employed by all of the sites were cost and other quantitative measures. Two of the sites, one relatively successful and one relatively unsuccess- ful, used standards to assess aspects of their organization. In both cases the stan- dards used were those formulated by the American Library Association. It should be noted that at sites Band D, where ex- pert opinion was employed as a type of as- sessment, the experts consulted were the librarians. None of the library reports in- cluded assessments of any aspects of their organizations based on the opinions of outside experts, nor did they include com- parisons with other libraries, a type of as- sessment that Knight1l0 found in the an- nual reports he studied. More than 70 percent of the assessments used at the relatively unsuccessful sites A and B took the form of costs or other types of quantitative measures. However, these types accounted for less than 40 percent of the assessments included in the self-study documents prepared at the more success- ful sites C and D, which relied heavily on user and expert opinion. User opinion ac- counted for 62.5 percent of the assessment measures were employed at site C and 50 percent of those included in the self-study Academic Library 43 document prepared at site D. Comparisons of the Assessment Measures Used in the Self-Study and Annual Reports The annual reports generated at sites A, B, and C for several years prior to the · accreditation-related self-study were ex- amined in order to help determine whether the assessments included in the self-study reports were typical of those used by the libraries on an ongoing basis. It was not possible to examine the reports from site D because, prior to the recent accreditation-related self-study, it did not issue annual reports. The self-study reports prepared by sites A and C contained a number of assess- ments of inputs that could not be found in their annual reports. At site C these in- cluded user assessments of the need for more money to buy materials in specific subject areas and of staff professionalism, as well as a measurement of space. The self-study document presented at site A contained a comparison of the level of staffing with that recommended in the American Library Association standards and a description of staff qualifications. Neither of these appeared in any of its an- nual reports. The annual reports generated at all three sites contained more detailed and numer- ous assessments of library processes than were addressed in the self-study docu- ments. Most of the process assessments included in the annual reports and ex- cluded from the self-study documents were quantitative assessments of such processes as cataloging, acquisitions· of books and periodicals, binding, conver- sion to microforms, and interlibrary loan activities. At each site, however, there were some assessments of processes that appeared in the self-study document but were not found in the annual reports. Examples in- clude quantifications of shelf and seating capacities, number of volumes added to the collection since the last regional ac- creditation review, expert opinions of the director and/or librarians on the improve- ment in security and services to the handi- 44 College & Research Libraries capped, and user opinions on collection adequacy, cooperative arrangements, and user education. All three of the self-study documents also contained many descrip- tions of processes not described in their annual reports. Among these were over- views of the various services and facilities available in the library and descriptions of methods used to select and classify mate- rials and of organization and management structures. In contrast to their self-study docu- ments, the annual reports prepared at site B and the more successful site C did ad- dress outputs and contained quantitative assessments of them, including the num- ber of uses for the facility and the number of materials circulated. Unlike sites Band C, outputs were included in the self-study document prepared at site A, the least suc- cessful site. However, a larger number and more detailed presentation of outputs were found in this site's annual reports. The Regional Accreditation Standards and the Self-Study Documents Although the library guidelines formu- lated by the New England Association21 and the Middle States Association22 differ greatly in length and in the number and range of library resources, capabilities, products, services, and benefits they ad- dress, they are similar in several impor- tant ways. First, both sets of guidelines are qualitative rather than quantitative. Sec- ond, to a great extent both documents consist of general and often vague state- January 1986 ments which, in order to infer the intent of the agency, require close analysis and ex- tensive interpretation. Finally, neither agency's statements address the question of which methods or performance mea- sures should be used by the library in or- der to determine the extent of its compli- ance with the guidelines. The classes of evaluation implied in these documents, as well as the resources, capabilities, prod- ucts, services, and benefits they address, are summarized in table 3. Comparisons of tables 2 and 3 indicate that there was little difference between the way in which the New England Associa- tion standards were addressed by site B, and the ways in which sites A, C and Dad- dressed the Middle States Association standards. Therefore, these comparisons can be summarized in terms of several generalizations. First, although the report prepared at site D, the most successful site, was the most comprehensive-in that it addressed at least one aspect of all the standards set by its regional accrediting association-the self-study reports pre- pared at the other sites included some as- pects of all of the input standards and most of the process standards included in the guidelines set by their regional accred- iting associations. Second, most of these input and process standards were ad- dressed descriptively in the self-study re- ports. Third, only the reports prepared at . sites A and D, which are at opposite ends of the self-study success spectrum, ad- dressed the outputs included in the stan- TABLE 3 CLASSES OF EVALUATION AND SPECIFIC RESOURCES, CAPABILITIES, PRODUCTS, SERVICES, AND BENEFITS ADDRESSED BY ACCREDITATION GUIDELINES Accrediting Association New England Middle States Class of Evaluation Input Process Input Process Output Resource, Capability, Product, Service, or Benefit Addressed Staff qualifications; staff size Collection availability, appropriateness, accessibility and arrangement; study space availability; cooperation arrangements. Staff experience, training and competence; budget adequacy; space; staff philosophy of service. Collection appropriateness, quality, balance and adequacy; cooperation with faculty; staff responsibility and status; utilization of computerized services; cooperative arrangements; organization of facility; facility conditions and availability. Effectiveness of general library operations; collection use; use of facility for instructional purposes; general use of facility. - 1 dards. And finally, the self-study docu- ments prepared at all sites included some descriptions and assessments of processes that did not seem to pertain to any of the standards developed by their regional ac- crediting agencies. The most obvious of these are the descriptions and/or assess- ments of user education programs that ap- pear in each of these reports. OBSERVATIONS The data from the analysis of the two re- gional accrediting associations' guidelines and the self-study and annual reports pre- pared at the case study sites suggest the following observations. • The analysis of the classes of evaluation and the specific resources, capabilities, products, and services addressed in the self-study report seems to indicate that there is no relationship between the ap- parent success level of the self-study process conducted at the case study sites and these characteristics of their re- ports. Specifically, sites A and D, on op- posite ends of the self-study success spectrum, addressed the widest variety of evaluation classes, i.e., inputs, proc- esses and outputs. In addition, there do not seem to be any striking differences bet een those resources, capabilities, products and services included in the successful self-study process sites' re- ports and those addressed by the un- successful self-study process sites. • It would seem that the reports of the more successful self-study processes, sites C and D, were less descriptive than the reports of the relatively unsuccess- ful sites. However, it should also be noted that all four of these reports were more than 60 percent descriptive. • The finding that site C employed the smallest number of assessments and site D the largest indicates that among these sites there was no relationship be- tween success of the self-study process and the number of assessments in- cluded in the reports. • The analysis of the self-study reports in- dicates that the types of assessments employed during the self-study are re- lated to the success of the self-study process. Specifically, the analysis re- vealed that the more successful sites in- Academic Library 45 eluded a higher percentage of user and expert opinions in their reports. The less successful sites relied more heavily on arbitrarily established criteria or standards from the profession, costs, and other quantitative measures as means of assessment. The experiences at these sites therefore suggest that as- sessments of various aspects of the li- brary by experts, and especially users, can be a valuable technique for facilitat- ing changes and improvements and for realizing other benefits from the self- study process. • At each of the sites the annual reports were much richer sources of informa- tion than the self-study documents. This seems to be especially true with re- spect to quantitative assessments of li- brary processes and outputs. This find- ing certainly seems contrary to what would logically be expected: the self- study document, which is intended to be a report of a concentrated period of self-evaluation, should have been more far-reaching and evaluative than the an- nual reports. • The self-study documents generated at all of the sites contain descriptions of processes, many of them overviews of library services and functions that did not appear in the annual reports. This suggests that these reports were written as orientation and/or public relations documents for an outside audience, i.e ., the evaluation teams, rather than as informative, candid assessments of li- brary performance to be used by mem- bers of the library staff and college com- munity. • It does not appear that the extent to which the standards or guidelines es- tablished by the regional accrediting as- sociations was addressed is related to the degree to which either improve- ments occurred in the libraries or librari- ans perceived that they benefited from their self-study experiences. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE In summary, it can be said that despite the fact that the self-study processes con- ducted at these four sites varied in terms of the improvements, changes, and bene- 46 College & Research Libraries fits accrued, their self-study reports were not very different. All were predomi- nantly descriptive, focused on library processes and contained fewer and less detailed quantitative assessments of the li- braries' processes and outputs than did their annual reports. Further, with the ex- ception of their inclusion of user or expert opinion as types of assessments, there- ports prepared at the relatively successful sites did not differ from those prepared at the relatively unsuccessful sites in terms of: classes of evaluation addressed; spe- cific resources, capabilities, products, and services addressed; number of assess- ment measures included; or extent to which accrediting association standards were addressed. As the description of the methodology of this study indicates, the libraries that served as case-study sites did not consti- tute a scientifically selected sample of aca- demic library self-study processes. How- ever, to the extent that these sites represent a cross section of self-study ex- periences, the findings of this study can be generalized to similar academic libraries and have implications for librarians and regional accrediting associations. It is likely that supporters of the regional accreditation process will find the results of this study disturbing and discouraging. The public relations nature of these docu- ments and their lack of candid assess- ments (relative to the annual reports) un- derscore the librarians' failure to report useful data on the effectiveness of the li- brary to the accrediting associations. Whether this is the result of unwilling- ness, oversight, or failure on the part of the library and/or the institutional admin- istration to understand or embrace the philosophy behind the regional accredita- tion process (and specifically the intention that the self-study process be a tool for im- January 1986 provement and planning) remains to be determined. The experiences at the four sites suggest that self-study reports typically do not ad- dress library outputs. Therefore, mem- bers of evaluation teams who rely heavily on them are in effect trying to evaluate the academic library's effectiveness and its achievement of goals largely on the basis of descriptions of its inputs and processes. This finding points out a need for in- formed evaluators who have been trained by the regional accrediting associations they represent to recognize the limitations of library self-study documents and to augment the information included in them. The findings study also suggest that user opinions of library performance and data from annual reports would be helpful to evaluators. At the same time, the results underscore the academic library's need for more di- rection and support as it undertakes accreditation-related self-study . Because there appears to be no relationship be- tween self-study success and the extent to which association guidelines or standards were addressed, it is incumbent upon these associations to develop guidelines or standards that provide more guidance to libraries willing to use the accreditation- related self-study process as an opportu- nity for assessing effectiveness. This guid- ance would seem to be most beneficial if it were built on the preliminary work con- ducted by Kania23 and assisted practitio- ners in identifying and then actually ap- plying appropriate performance mea- sures. Additional sources of self-study assistance could be continuing education programs offered by library schools (such as those recently conducted by Kells and Kania at Rutgers University) and pro- grams sponsored by various professional associations serving academic librarians and other educators. REFERENCES 1. Herbert R. Kells, Self-Study Processes: A Guide for Post-Secondary Institutions (Washington, D .C.: American Council on Education, 1980), p.14-15. 2. Paul L. Dressel, ''Accreditation and Institutional Self-Study,'' North Central Association Quarterly 46:277-87 (Fall1971). Academic Library 47 3. Herbert R. Kells, "Institutional Accreditation: New Forms of Self-Study," Educational Record 53:143-48 (Spring 1972); and" An Alternative Model for Self-Study in Higher Education," North Central Association Quarterly 52:341-46 (Feb. 1977). 4. Grover J. Andrews, Non- Traditional Self-Studies in Accreditation, (U.S. Educational Resources Infor- mation Center, 1976, text-fiche), ED 118156. 5. R. C. Haywood, "The Mythus of Accreditation," The Educational Forum 38:228 Gan. 1974); Rolf Larson, "Accreditation: Some Professional Problems," Learning Today 5:34 (Summer 1972); Stephen Romine, "Objectives, Objections, and Options: Some Perspectives of Regional Accredi- tation," North Central Association Quarterly 49:367 (Spring 1975). 6. Herbert R. Kells, "The Purposes and Legacy of Effective Self-Study Processes: Enhancing the Study-Planning Cycle," Journal of Higher Education 51:444 Guly/Aug. 1980). 7. Herbert R. Kells, "The Reform of Regional Accreditation Agencies," Educational Record 57:26 (Winter 1976). 8. Eileen Rossi, "Accreditation Self-Study and Institutional Adaptability" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford Univ., 1979). 9. James D. Koerner, "Preserving the Status Quo," Change 3:52-53 (Mar./Apr. 1971); William E. Troutt, "Regional Accreditation Evaluative Criteria and Quality Assurance," Journal of Higher Ed- ucation 50:209 (Mar./Apr. 1979). 10. Troutt, p.209; Herman L. Totten, Identification of Library Elements in Statements of Accrediting Stan- dards: A Review of the Literature, (U.S. Educational Resources Information Center, 1974, text-fiche), ED 121350. 11. Alan Dale Covey, "Evaluation of College Libraries for Accreditation Purposes" (Ed. D. diss ., Stan- ford Univ., 1955). 12. Morris A. Gelfand, "Techniques of Library Evaluators in the Middle States Association," College & Research Libraries 19:305-20 Guly 1958). 13. Dudley W. Yates, "An Analyses of the Bases Used by Library Evaluators in the Accrediting Pro- cess of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools" (Ph.D. diss., Florida State Univ., 1973). 14. Ronald George Leach, "Identification and Modification of Criteria and Procedures for Evaluating Colleges and Universities by North Central Association Teams" (Ph.D. diss., Michigan State Univ ., 1980). 15. Toni Kania, ''The Development of a Model Set of Regional Accreditation Standards for Academic Libraries" (Ed.D. diss., Rutgers Univ., 1984). 16. Mary F. Casserly, ''Self-Study and Planned Change in Academic Libraries: A Case Study Analysis of Regional Accreditation Self-Study Experiences" (Ph.D. diss., Rutgers Univ., 1984). 17. Kells, Self-Study Processes, p.16. 18. Jack Lindquist, Strategies for Change (Berkeley, Calif.: Pacific Soundings Pr., 1978), p.240-43. 19. John J. Knightly, ''Overcoming the Criterion Problem in the Evaluation of Library Performance,'' Special Libraries 70:173-78 (Apr. 1979). 20 . Ibid. 21 . Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, Standards for Accreditation (Burlington, Mass.: New England Association of Schools and Colleges, 1979), p.6. 22. Commission on Higher Education, Characteristics of Excellence in Higher Education and Standards for Middle States Accreditation (Philadelphia, Pa.: Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, 1978), p.15-17. 23. Kania, "The Development of a Model Set of Regional Accreditation Standards for Academic Li- braries," 1984.