How Libraries and Librarians Help: A Guide to Identifying User-centered Outcomes - Softcover

Joan C. Durrance; Karen E. Fisher; Marian Bouch Hinton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0838908926 ISBN 13: 9780838908921

Publisher: ALA Editions,US, 2004

Synopsis

Being able to ""tell your library's story,"" illustrating how library services provide value and help the community and users, is the key to your library's future. The practice of measuring outcomes is becoming crucial to the library's ongoing mission: libraries are being called upon to address the value of library programs by assessing their effects on library patrons and the community as a whole. With funding under a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Durrance and Fisher have developed the ""How Libraries and Librarians Help (HLLH) Outcome Model,"" field testing it in six libraries over two years. In this practical reference, they share their findings, cutting-edge, step-by-step HLLH methods, and library success stories that bring the process to life with outcomes like, ""Empowering Youth"" and ""Strengthening Community."" Use this straightforward model to: Strategize the big picture, collect, and interpret data with seven easy exercises; Apply the four-step process to assess and present outcomes; Measure and report your library's contributions; Draw together all the pieces to communicate a compelling case for library services; To stay in the game, library directors, administrators, managers, and community leaders must prove the value of the library and its services using outcome measures. Here's how to quantify the contribution of your library's programs to individuals and communities to gain recognition and funding.

About this title

About the Author

Joan C. Durrance is Professor and Coordinator of the Library and Information Science Program in the School of Information at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. There, she developed the ""Community Connector,"" an electronic gateway of digital community information resources. A leading authority on community information research, she is also the author of several books including Meeting Community Needs through Job and Career Centers and Armed for Action. She received ALA's Isadore Gilbert Mudge-R.R. Bowker Award for distinguished contribution to reference librarianship. Durrance earned her master's degree in library science from the University of North Carolina and her doctorate from the University of Michigan. Karen E. Pettigrew is Assistant Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington, Seattle. Teaching and researching in the area of human information behavior, she is an award-winning and widely published expert. Her collaboration with Joan Durrance began when she joined the University of Michigan School of Information as a Research Fellow and Lecturer in 1998-1999. She earned her master's and doctoral degrees in library and information science from the University of Western Ontario.

Edition details

• Publisher: ALA Editions,US
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0838908926
• ISBN 13: 9780838908921
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192