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Measurement, Evaluation and Assessment Committee – April–August 2021 Report


The group met 1 time this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Worked with our staff liaison to develop a topical survey on staffing and diversity that will be administered to public libraries in Fall 2021.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice, Organizational Excellence

Second Activity
Provided input on the development of the new Benchmark tool that is replacing the PLDS/PLAMetrics and will launch in Fall 2021.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

Third Activity
Worked on a new Project Outcome (PO) case study – examining the use of PO to evaluate take and make kits.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Organizational Excellence

Fourth Activity
Offered a News You Can Use session at ALA Annual to raise awareness about recently added and upcoming data tools available to public libraries.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Organizational Excellence

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
1 – Participating in the launch and promotion of the Benchmark tool
2 – Completing the Take and Make Kits Project Outcome case study
3 – Launching a new Project Outcome survey on technology use
4 – Developing a topical survey that will be administered to public libraries in Fall 2022

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
No

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
No

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
No

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
Yes (if yes, PLA will contact you for more information)

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
No – thank you for your support!

Submitted by Linda Hofschire on 09/22/2021

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Measurement, Evaluation and Assessment Committee – April–August 2020 Report


The group met 2-3 times this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Project Outcome (PO) case study subcommittee reviewed the PO UX survey findings and brainstormed possible case study topics based on these findings, interviewed library staff for the purposes of developing a new case study, and drafted the case study.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Leadership

Second Activity
Technology Survey subcommittee reviewed survey draft and made recommendations for changes based on the pandemic.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Leadership

Third Activity
Typology subcommittee met to provide feedback on the typologies, with an eye toward helping PLA communicate the typologies in an accessible manner to practitioners.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Leadership

Fourth Activity
Raising Awareness subcommittee created a webpage format for sharing existing public library data resources with the field, committee members are adding resources.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Leadership

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
Publishing new PO case study
Identifying a rural/small library to be the subject of a PO case study
Reviewing and providing feedback on the new data tool that will replace the PLDS
Finalizing the Raising Awareness resource and posting it online
Determining a strategy for sharing the typologies with the field
Providing input on the next round of the Public Libraries' Response to COVID survey
Developing and testing a new PO survey about the use of technology in libraries
Determining how PO resources can be updated to support libraries during the pandemic

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
Not at this time

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
None other than those mentioned above in the planned work for the next 6 months

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
CORS

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
No

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
No – thank you for your support!

Submitted by Linda Hofschire on 09/02/2020

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Measurement, Evaluation and Assessment Committee – September–March 2020 Report


The group met 4-6 times this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
With the PLDS on pause, the MEAC focused much of their work during this reporting period on determining its future. The committee hosted three town halls (one in-person at the ARSL conference and two virtual) for the field to provide feedback about their data needs. In addition, feedback was solicited from current PLAmetrics subscribers. Based on this feedback, as well as other factors including low usage of PLAmetrics, the committee voted to sunset the PLDS and develop other initiatives to better meet the needs of the field.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Organizational Excellence, Transformation

Second Activity
The committee formed five subgroups to work on current priorities:

1) Future of the PLDS – subgroup reviewed the feedback from the town halls and PLAmetrics subscriber list
2) Project Outcome Case Studies – subgroup discussed surveying PO users
3) Tech Survey – subgroup reviewed drafts of the survey
4) Typologies – subgroup discussed strategies for developing the typologies
5) Elevating existing public library datasets and tools – subgroup discussed strategies for raising awareness about datasets and tools including the ALA Salary Survey, Project Outcome, RIPL, etc.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Organizational Excellence, Transformation

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
The group will a) review the results of the Tech Survey and the Typologies and determine strategies for promotion; and b) determine next steps with the Project Outcome case studies and efforts to raise awareness of existing public library datasets and tools, including the possible development of a webpage to promote these efforts.

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
We seek approval on the decision to sunset the PLDS.

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
Not at this time.

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
Not at this time.

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
No

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
Not at this time. PLA has been very supportive – thank you!

Submitted by Linda Hofschire on 03/17/2020

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Measurement, Evaluation and Assessment Committee – April–August 2019 Report


The group met 2-3 times this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Spring 2019 Virtual Meeting: Updates on all work relevant to committee activities (Project Outcome – new health survey added, discussed results of University of Michigan study of existing PO data, ACRL's launch of Project Outcome for academic libraries; PLDS – how the pause for 2019 will be communicated to the field as well as overview of all-day meeting at Annual to discuss changes to the PLDS; Impact Survey – PLA will now manage this initiative).
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice, Leadership, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

Second Activity
2019 ALA Annual Committee Meeting:

Discussed the following Project Outcome topics:

1) How to bring more libraries on and how to support the 10% of US public libraries already using the tool. Suggestions included an in-person presentation for COSLA, and targeted outreach to certain types of libraries that are less likely to be using PO, such as large city libraries.

2) Requests from public libraries to use some of the academic Project Outcome survey topics – in particular, space, and digital & special collections. At this time, the committee decided not to add these topics to PO for public libraries because some members thought that it was inappropriate to be measuring outcomes for space, and that if we tackle collections on the public side, we need to think more broadly than just digital & special collections.

3) Accessibility issues: PO users have reported that some patrons have trouble understanding/completing the surveys. The committee discussed simplifying the question language and response scales. PPO will be using PO surveys for their American Dream program, and we will get feedback from them regarding respondents' survey experiences.

We also received an update from Counting Opinions about the 2018 PLDS data collection. At the time of the meeting, the survey was still open, and the response rate was on track with past years.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice, Leadership, Organizational Excellence

Third Activity
MEAC members met for a special, full-day meeting during Annual to discuss the future of the PLDS. An external facilitator – GMMB – planned and led the meeting. Committee members discussed topics including the purpose of PLA data collection, future trends that may impact public libraries (facilitated by Miguel Figueroa – ALA's Center for the Future of Libraries), various target audiences' data needs and challenges, what types of data and data tools public libraries need, and how to engage the field in discussions about the future of the PLDS.

Based on these discussions, the committee has developed an agenda for a series of town halls that will be conducted during the fall to engage the broader public library community in discussions about the future of the PLDS.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Leadership, Organizational Excellence

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
A primary focus will be the re-envisioning of the PLDS. The committee will conduct a series of in-person and virtual town halls to engage the field in discussions about this topic, and will work with PLA staff to develop a new data collection instrument/platform for public libraries.

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
Not at this time.

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
Not at this time.

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
ACRL Project Outcome, Committee on Research and Statistics

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
No

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
No – thank you for your support.

Submitted by Linda Hofschire on 09/03/2019