CONCLUDING COMMENTS: 2010 LIBRARY ASSESSMENT CONFERENCE

This special issue of Library Quarterly has privileged readers with a retrospective, current state of library assessment in critical areas of librarianship and a look toward the future of library evaluation. Inherent within these articles are notions of a deep tradition of assessment, progress, challenges, and tensions (not necessarily negative) that exist among library management, performance, quality, and value demonstration to external constituencies. In reading the articles individually, one is impressed by the depth of knowledge exhibited in the areas of learning outcomes, evaluation frameworks, history of evaluation, library space, and library valuation-although each article concedes that there is a road ahead of us yet to be traveled. But collectively, the articles demonstrate how far library evaluation has come, particularly within the last decade.