Evaluating the Impact of Your Library

Impact and all that: use of some key terms in this bookPART 1: THE CONTEXT1. The demand for evidence

• Why is evidence of impact an issue for libraries (and information services)?
• Emerging interest in the management of change
• What is distorting the picture?
• Why is it important to tackle impact?

2. Getting to grips with impact

• A metaphor and a model
• Why is impact such a slippery concept?
• Overviews of impact
• Changing how we think of evidence
• What does impact mean?

3. The research base of this work

• What we know about impact from the management literature
• Evidence-based practice and the LIS picture
• The overall research picture
• What we don't know
• Where our model comes from

PART 2: EVALUATING IMPACT4. Putting the impact into planning

• Why do we need a new evaluation model?
• The model
• Using the model
• And the first question is
• How do you currently measure your success as a service?

5. Getting things clear: objectives

• Choosing where to get involved
• The mission
• Where can libraries make an impact?
• From impact areas to objectives
• Some examples of objectives
• Why objectives matter

6. Success criteria and impact indicators: how you know you are making a difference

• Formulating success criteria: getting the balance right
• What sorts of changes will show impact?
• What is an impact indicator?
• What do good indicators look like?
• What do you do if you don't know what impact to expect?
• What makes a poor indicator?
• Some issues to consider before you start writing indicators
• Writing indicators
• Getting the words right
• Using frameworks to help you choose appropriate indicators
• Some indicators

7. Making things happen: activities and process indicators

• Why activities? Why now?
• Identify activities
• Review the activities
• Process indicators
• Output indicators
• Process and output indicators: things to watch
• The 'reach' of the service

8. Thinking about evidence

• Deciding your approach to gathering evidence
• The organizational context
• Finding strong surrogates for impact evidence
• Ethical evidence-gathering
• Matching the evidence to your needs
• What counts as impact evidence?
• Fitness for the purpose
• Other methods of gathering impact evidence

9. Gathering and interpreting evidence

• Observation
• Asking questions
• Interviewing
• Getting impact information from people in groups
• Collecting stories and constructing case studies as impact evidence
• Action research
• Doing it!
• Analysing data
• Interpreting and presenting your evidence
• Sources on research methods
• Finding research methods e-resources
• Evidence or advocacy?

10. Taking stock, setting targets and development planning

• Taking stock: reviewing your impact and process indicators
• Setting targets for impact
• Process targets
• Development planning
• Planning your impact evaluation

PART 3: THE BIGGER PICTURE11. Doing national or international evaluation

• Looking at the national and international picture
• Negotiate the terminology
• Respond to the national impact challenge
• What can national or international library evaluation try to achieve?
• Are you ready for impact evaluation?
• Start evaluation with programme design - and learn as you go
• Identifying a framework for national and international impact evaluation
• Developing an approach to impact evaluation at national level
• Ethical evaluation
• Emergent evaluation revisited
• Plan the evaluation
• Starting to enact your plan
• Sustain the process
• Thoughts on advocacy
• Some examples of impact evidence and advocacy
• Impact evaluation, advocacy and service sustainability

12. Where do we go from here?

• Getting impact evaluation right
• Getting beyond the narrow focus
• Digging deeper
• Looking long enough
• Getting help
• Towards impact benchmarking
• Towards evidence-based working?
• Other visions