National Network of Libraries of Medicine

nnlm.gov

Dragonfly

Winter 2004 -- Volume 35, Number 1

New Class Focuses On Hospital Library Evaluation

by Betsy Kelly
NN/LM MidContinenetal Region

Colorado Council of Medical Libraries sponsored a new workshop, Measuring Your Impact: Using Evaluation to Demonstrate Value, in Denver on April 2, 2004. Betsy Kelly, NN/LM MidContinental Region (NN/LM MCR) and Maryanne Blake, NN/LM Pacific Northwest Region (NN/LM PNR) with Cathy Burroughs, Acting Associate Director of NN/LM PNR and Assistant Director, Outreach Evaluation Resource Center (OERC), developed the workshop in response to growing concerns about hospital library closures. Hospital libraries are facing numerous challenges. These include the rising cost of library resources, cuts to library budgets and staffing, and increased workloads. At the same time the "everything is free on the Internet" syndrome is rampant. Librarians are looking for ways to demonstrate their value to their institutions not only to save their jobs but to ensure that health care professionals and patients and their families have ready, reliable access to health information.

Librarians may know instinctively, may even have statistics to show that library resources - both staff and print/electronic - are used by their communities but hospital administrators want more proof than the number of books and journals shelved, the number of searches conducted and the number of interlibrary loans processed. Demonstrating value can show the impact of the library on the organization's mission and goals, show accountability, serve as an advocacy and marketing tool. Being proactive rather than reactive is imperative.

The workshop emphasized the importance of librarians understanding and addressing the organizational mission when developing evaluation plans. MLA is devoting resources to library survival. It's Librarian's Survival Kit on the MLA web poses the question "Are you jeopardized by hospital administrators only concerned with the bottom line; or merely by those uneducated about what a real librarian does?" and stresses "No matter what the reason, address the priorities of the organization as a whole, instead of attending only to the needs of the library. Do not use your jargon; use their jargon. …. Show that you meet the needs and further the goals of the organization." (http://www.mlanet.org/resources/survive/index.html)

The workshop included discussions about assessing the library and its communities, choosing what to evaluate, developing a logic model that describes the activities and resources needed to provide library services, designing an evaluation plan, collecting and making sense of the data and communicating results.

Participants learned that the assessment phase will help the evaluator understand needs, desires and problems, validate assumptions about services, and provide data for later evaluation. When choosing what to evaluate consider who wants or needs to know what, what users feel is important, and what certain stakeholders want to have evaluated. Choosing what to evaluate helps the evaluator articulate what you want to accomplish. Using the plan backward, implement forward concept, once you know where you want to go you can plan how to get there. Logic models help articulate what you do or will do to get where you want to go. The evaluation plan describes the tools that will be used and the resources needed to carry out the evaluation. It also defines "success" - how you know that you've achieved your goals. Knowing what you want to measure will dictate whether surveys, observations, skill tests, self reporting through interviews or focus groups, or other measures are most appropriate. Knowing who will use the results of your evaluation will help you narrow your data collection approach. Some of the currently popular analysis tools discussed include cost/benefit analysis, return on investment, balanced scorecard approach and benchmarking.

Finally, the participants considered reporting results. Issues such as audience, the purpose or use of the report, format, and dissemination strategies will affect who receives an executive summary, charts and graphs, or the full report. It is important to have interested parties outside the library review drafts to ensure there is a clear link between conclusions, recommendations, results and the original evaluation question. While the traditional written report is always useful librarians are encouraged to be creative. Photo essays, posters, Q&As on library websites, presentations to hospital professional and administrative staff, and publications in respected journals are all effective ways to get your message across - the professionally managed hospital library is an invaluable and irreplaceable resource for administrators, practitioners, patients and families and the greater community.

Dragonfly, Spring 2004 -- Volume 35 Issue 2

This publication is funded in whole with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, under Contract No. N01-LM-1-3516.

NN/LM | UW HSL | NN/LM PNR | Contact us: nnlm@u.washington.edu | Revised: May 12, 2004

National Network of Libraries of Medicine

nnlm.gov

Dragonfly

Winter 2004 -- Volume 35, Number 1

New Class Focuses On Hospital Library Evaluation

URL: http://nnlm.gov/pnr/news/200404/hospitaleval.html