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Director's Corner

In my last Director's Corner, I talked about the need for a different approach for providing outreach to community-based groups and special populations. In this one, I would like to suggest a different kind of thinking about evaluating the effectiveness of an outreach program which targets community based organizations and special populations.

The traditional method for evaluating library effectiveness and the effectiveness of traditional outreach programs (outreach to health professionals) has been to set goals or objectives based on the number of outputs. Examples of goals or objectives of a traditional outreach project (one aimed at health professionals) may have included: 1) to teach X people PubMed; 2) to install X computers in each office; 3) to provide X articles through document delivery services, etc. Effectiveness would have been measured by how close we came to meeting our target numbers. The implication, of course, was more is better or the closest we came to our target numbers the more effective we were. Following this reasoning then, a $50,000 project that trained 100 people, gave away 5 computers and delivered 100 articles was more effective than a $50,000 project that trained only 10 people, gave away 5 computers and delivered no articles. I'd like to suggest this logic that we need to think differently in terms of defining outreach effectiveness; especially when we look at providing outreach to community based groups and special populations.

Rather than the "more is better" approach as a definition of effectiveness, I propose we look at the conditions for effectiveness. In his most recent book, Leading Teams, J. R. Hackman, a well-known researcher in organizational behavior, suggests a model of measuring effectiveness that focuses on conditions rather than outputs. His theory is that if his five conditions are in place, the likelihood of effectiveness is greater than if the conditions were not in place. These conditions, though applied to teams, can be adapted to outreach projects. (J. R. Hackman, Leading Teams, Harvard University Press, 2002).

Condition 1: a real team. Hackman says that the people in a team must work together interdependently. In applying this to outreach, the community groups must be in real partnership with the library providing the outreach services. The groups may feel they are truly a part of the outreach team not just passive recipients of services. They must be part of the decision making and project planning processes.

Condition 2: a compelling direction. Hackman says teams must have a clear purpose. In applying this to outreach, I would suggest that the community groups must have a compelling reason to participate in the project; and that reason can not simply be to get a computer into their organization. They must truly believe that access to quality health information will help them in some way make better decisions.

Condition 3: an enabling team structure. By this, Hackman refers to having the right mix of people on the team; that the team be the right size for the tasks at hand. I would translate this into thinking about making sure that the right library staff member is assigned to the project; that there is a liaison established in each participating group. Also, that there is stability to the project participants at this level.

Condition 4: supportive organizational structure. Here Hackman says that teams do not operate in a vacuum; that there needs to be information, communication and educational systems in place for support of teams. The same with outreach projects. The library and the community-based groups must have ongoing support of their organizations for the project. These may include the use of e-mail for ongoing communication, a newsletter to promote classes to be offered, computer support, etc.

Keeping these conditions in mind when planning on outreach project geared towards community-based groups will ensure a greater likelihood of success to you project.

Elaine Martin, Director