Andrew Asher

(He/him/his)
Assessment Librarian
Associate Librarian

Herman B Wells Library 241F

(812) 855-1609

An anthropologist and ethnographer by vocation, Andrew Asher holds a Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology (2008) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His dissertation, Borderline Europeans: European Union Citizenship on the Polish-German Frontier, examined transnational citizenship practices and ethnic identities developing in the wake of the 2004 European Union expansion. From 2008-2010, he led the Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL) project, a two-year study of student research processes at five Illinois universities and one of the largest ethnographic studies of libraries undertaken to date. In 2010 he joined Bucknell University as a Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Postdoctoral Fellow for Scholarly Communications and was promoted to Digital Initiatives Coordinator and Scholarly Communications Officer in 2012.

Andrew was appointed as Indiana University Bloomington's first Assessment Librarian in 2013. In this role, he leads the Libraries’ qualitative and quantitative assessment and evaluation programs, designs and conducts research initiatives about the impacts of IUB Libraries' collections and services, and contributes to strategic planning and analysis in teaching and learning, library analytics, collections, and other areas. His current research focuses on the sociocultural dimensions of information use, including information discovery workflows of students and faculty, information fluency development, and the ethical and privacy dimensions of learning analytics data. He is currently a member of the Data Doubles research team, a three-year IMLS-funded study of student perspectives of privacy issues associated with learning analytics initiatives in libraries. He has written and presented widely on the role of academic libraries in higher education, including the co-edited volume, College Libraries and Student Culture.

In 2020, Andrew was awarded the William Evans Jenkins Award by the Indiana University Libraries “in recognition of truly outstanding contributions to the Indiana University Libraries or to the library profession in general by a present or former librarian.” In 2010, he was awarded the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) Community Service Award for the “Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries” research study. He was also a Fulbright-Hays fellow in 2005. In addition to his role with the Libraries, Andrew currently teaches Evaluation of Resources and Services (Information & Library Science 505) for the Department of Information and Library Science, Indiana University Bloomington.

Recent publications include:

  • Forthcoming: Asher, A., Briney, K. A., Jones, K. M. L., Regalado, M., Perry, M.R., Goben, A, Smale, M.A. & Salo, D. "Questions of Trust: A Survey of Student Expectations and Perspectives on Library Learning Analytics." Library Quarterly.
  • 2020: Jones, K. M. L., Asher, A., Goben, A., Perry, M. R., Salo, D., Briney, K. A., & Robertshaw, M. B. “'We’re being tracked at all times': Student perspectives of their privacy in relation to learning analytics in higher education." Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 71(9), 1044–1059. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24358. Winner of University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) University Library Stephen J. Wiberley Jr. Faculty Publication Award.
  • 2019: Robertshaw, M. Brooke & Andrew Asher. "Unethical Numbers: A Meta-analysis of Library Learning Analytics Studies." Library Trends. 68(1):76-101.
  • 2017: Asher, Andrew, Jean Amaral, Juliann Couture, Barbara Fister, Donna Lanclos, M. Sara Lowe, Mariana Regalado, & Maura Smale. "Mapping Student Days: Collaborative Ethnography and the Student Experience." Collaborative Librarianship. 9(4):293-317.
  • 2017: Asher, Andrew. "Space Use in the Commons: Evaluating a Flexible Library Environment." Evidence Based Library Information Practice. 12(2):68-89.
  • 2013: Asher, Andrew, Lynda Duke & Suzanne Wilson. "Paths of Discovery: Comparing the Search Effectiveness of EBSCO Discovery Service, Summon, Google Scholar, and Conventional Library Resources." College and Research Libraries. 74(5):464-488.

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