Task Force Recommendations
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What do we think you should keep in mind?
Recommendation 1:
Consider both quantitative and qualitative data in your overall plan.
Recommendation 2:
Use existing data (usage, web stats), informal methods (observation, discussions) and formal methods (surveys, interviews)
Recommendation 3:
Think about what you need to know and what is important to your users and stakeholders.
Top Resources: Documents
- Questions of Life and Death: An Investigation into the Value of Health Library & Information Service2012. Health Libraries Inc., and ALIA (Australian Library & Information Association. Surveyed service users and library & information professionals. Confirmed the contribution by library services and the value of employing librarians.
- Measuring Your Impact: Using Evaluation for Library AdvocacySlides from NN/LM Workshop, 2011. Covers a lot!
Top Resources: Links
- Evaluating clinical librarian services: a systematic reviewBrettle, A., Maden-Jenkins, M., Anderson, L., McNally, R., Pratchett, T., Tancock, J., Thornton, D. and Webb, A. (2011), Evaluating clinical librarian services: a systematic review. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 28: 3–22.
- eValued ToolkitAn evaluation toolkit for e-library developments aimed at higher education Libraries.
Includes tips and tools.From Birmingham CITY University. - NNLM Tools for Evaluating programs & Servicesfrom NN/LM National Network of Libraries of Medicine
Includes Calculators & Online Survey Tools - Tools & Resources for Evaluation & Data CollectionFrom NN/LM. Many more resources, including a guide to questionnaire development.
- Key Performance Indicators in Irish Hospital Libraries: Developing Outcome-Based Metrics to Support Advocacy and Service DeliveryObjective: To develop a set of generic outcome-based performance measures for Irish hospital libraries.
Conclusion: The indicators can be adopted at a local and potentially a national level, as both a tool for advocacy and to assess and improve service delivery at a macro level. To overcome the constraints posed by necessary simplifications, substantial further research is needed by hospital libraries to develop more sophisticated and meaningful measures of impact to further aid decision making at a micro level.
Image credits
Image courtesy of [Master isolated images] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
What is this?
Measuring value is complex. Let's start with an overview. This section offers more general resources to assist with planning your evaluation activities.
This section has pages dedicated to more specific strategies for collecting data and measuring value, including:
What is 'measuring value'?
In a nutshell, this covers the Why? What? and How? driving the process of determining indicators to measure outcomes and impact.
Give Me an Example!
The eVALUEd Toolkit provides a 9 Stage Process to follow. For this section, see in particular 1 to 6.
- Decide the purpose.
- Identify stakeholders
- Decide what to evaluate
- Choose methods
- Collect Data
- Analyse Data
Logic Model
To plan your evaluation activities, use this planning tool to connect activities to outcomes.
From: Cooper, I.D. (2011). Is the informationist a new role? A logic model analysis. J Med Lib Assoc. 99(3).