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Creating a Culture of Evaluation: Taking Your Library from Talk to Action
The world has changed significantly since the financial crisis of 2008. Publicly funded institutions are being challenged to demonstrate their financial value and economic impact in ways that are new to many of them. Public libraries, which have long depended upon public funding without having to justify how that money was spent, are now being asked to prove their worth in terms of the amount of money taxpayers invest versus the value they receive in return.
This emphasis on economic impact, however, is only one quantitative impact measure, and it ignores qualitative aspects of value that are much more difficult to assess and document. A new approach to quantitative and qualitative impacts is therefore needed if we want to capture the multi-dimensional value of libraries to their communities. The desire for a new, outcome-based evaluation model is profound within the public library community. In a climate of increasing costs and diminishing public budgets, public libraries -- more than ever -- need to show the positive difference they make in their communities and neighbourhoods.
Developing a culture of evaluation is a necessary part of successfully demonstrating the value and impact that libraries have on their communities. Creating a Culture of Evaluation: Taking Your Library from Talk to Action illuminates the importance of endorsing outcome-based evaluation at the administrative level and demonstrates how to implement and integrate evaluation practices on a practical level. The goal is to encourage the development and use of evaluation practices in library operations, thereby giving libraries the evidence they need to effectively demonstrate their economic, educational, cultural, and social value.
This emphasis on economic impact, however, is only one quantitative impact measure, and it ignores qualitative aspects of value that are much more difficult to assess and document. A new approach to quantitative and qualitative impacts is therefore needed if we want to capture the multi-dimensional value of libraries to their communities. The desire for a new, outcome-based evaluation model is profound within the public library community. In a climate of increasing costs and diminishing public budgets, public libraries -- more than ever -- need to show the positive difference they make in their communities and neighbourhoods.
Developing a culture of evaluation is a necessary part of successfully demonstrating the value and impact that libraries have on their communities. Creating a Culture of Evaluation: Taking Your Library from Talk to Action illuminates the importance of endorsing outcome-based evaluation at the administrative level and demonstrates how to implement and integrate evaluation practices on a practical level. The goal is to encourage the development and use of evaluation practices in library operations, thereby giving libraries the evidence they need to effectively demonstrate their economic, educational, cultural, and social value.
358 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2017
2 people want to read
About the author
Kim(berly) Silk
1 book7 followersMom. Wife. Librarian. Author. Library Impact Researcher. Slytherin. Occasional bursts of athleticism.
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