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The Mixed-Method Library: Qualitative Research and the Future of Assessment in Higher Education

I have been working as the library ethnographer at UNC Charlotte since 2009. I was hired as a full-time employee, and report directly to the university librarian. What I was hired to do was never initially described to me as “assessment.” I am an anthropologist, and have always framed my work as an exploration and analysis of the thoughts and behaviors that are involved in academic work. Assessment, in the sense of collecting information that can be used to improve and transform the work we do in the library, turns out to be at the heart of what I do, as a policydirected social scientist. I want address here the broader implications of committing full-time work to qualitative research in a library policy context.