Assessment in United States higher education has become very important in recent years. Virtually all colleges and universities are now striving to prove through empirical evidence that they are committed to improving student learning. Created in late 2005, the US Department of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education was charged with the task of "developing a strategy for higher education to meet the needs of America's population and address the economic and workforce needs of the future." The Commission's final report, "A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of United States Higher Education," makes several recommendations for reform and states in a summary that "improved accountability is vital to ensuring the success of all the other reforms. Colleges and universities must become more transparent about cost, price, and student success outcomes, and must willingly share this information with students and families." Though the report was not an early wake-up call for assessment, since articles on the need and importance of assessment in higher education had been published in the literature before 2006, it was an important document on the topic from a political and administrative perspective and has had a significant impact on campuses across the nation. This is because, in response to the Commission's report, the regional accreditation organizations made changes in their standards, and these changes have been directly responsible for the trend toward assessment. As might be expected, some of the standards of several of these regional organizations relate to academic libraries and have changed the way they are assessed. This article reviews the literature on assessment in academic and research libraries that has been published since the Commission on the Future of Higher Education was created in 2005 and up until August 2011. To offer a competent and manageable review of the literature, the article focuses on assessments concerned with the management or administration of libraries and their collections, public services, and issues or projects affecting more than one department within a library. (Contains 111 notes.)