Library professionals are increasingly grappling with what Lynn Connaway and Marie L. Radford describe as “the assessment imperative”, or the growing pressure from funders, accrediting bodies, and administrators to prove their worth through measurable outcomes. In their recent work on research methods in library science, they note that this shift was formalized as early as 2011 when the Association of College and Research Libraries declared that “librarians are increasingly called upon to document and articulate the value of academic and research libraries and their contribution to institutional mission and goals.”

The challenge is that “value” is such a squishy concept, especially in a field that is intrinsically rooted relationship-building. To repeat my mantra: libraries and their workers deal in people, not in books. While I understand that libraries face real budget pressures and accountability demands, I question: what gets lost in translation in chasing metrics and numbers?

This question just became urgently relevant, as recently as 12 hours before this was posted. In response to the recent federal funding changes, the Dean of the UW-Madison General Library System announced our own 7% budget reduction affecting collections, technology, student staff, and potentially some positions. As administrators assess and evaluate these cuts, I can’t help but ask: do our current tools actually capture the most valuable work happening in libraries?

In light of these financial restraints, I can’t help but to feel obligated to define– and defend– the work I do.

As a student supervisor who splits time between circulation and mentoring student workers, I’ve realized my strongest skill is relationship building, which is something that feels almost impossible to assess using traditional tools. For the past year, I went through a bit of imposter syndrome where I felt guilty about this strength because it doesn’t always feel like “work”. My supervisor assured me how valuable it is and that it’s a relatively rare and needed skill set in our workplace. The student workers are the lifeblood of our institution. Not only do they physically keep the building open, they are our gateway to our patronbase. The least we can do in return is to make this an enjoyable and rewarding place to work. However, this got me wondering: in our “efficient” systems, can “being liked by my students” actually count as a professional accomplishment?

I would hope so. The most rewarding part of my job is watching student workers transform from nervous underclassmen into confident team leaders who mentor newer hires. I see shy students find their voice through public service and struggling students develop organizational skills through individual projects. And if anything at all, I hope to simply offer a workplace where they can depend on to find belonging and community– an escape from the stress of all other aspects of student life. From my frontline perspective, our mentoring relationship absolutely contributes to their enrichment, but some may argue I can’t claim my supervision “caused” these changes. There are too many other variables: their classes, personal life, other campus experiences.

This limitation feels frustrating as someone in the frontlines interacting with the students daily, but I get why it matters for credible research. Still, it highlights a tension between the accountability pressure explored in these “value assessments” and the actual human work that drew me to libraries in the first place. How do you use surveys or focus groups to measure relationship quality? What assessment tool captures the confidence that develops through trusted mentorship?

More broadly, this actually hits the nail on my biggest pet peeve when it comes to diversity endeavors in higher education. So much emphasis is placed on enrollment statistics and buzz words like “diverse hiring” or “inclusive recruitment”, but I often ask: do employees and students of minority backgrounds actually have access to the support they need to both be successful or feel understood by their respective academic and professional communities?

The kind of relationship-building and mentoring I do with student workers might be exactly what helps underrepresented students succeed in higher education, but it’s invisible in diversity metrics. This is a hunch I will never stop arguing in support of. However, when budget cuts come around, will administrators value the measurable diversity initiatives over the harder-to-quantify support work that actually helps students feel they belong?