Competency N: Introduction
N. Evaluate programs and services using measurable criteria.
Information services in general, and libraries in particular, often operate on a narrow budgetary margin. Because of this, they must consistently evaluate their return on investment for their programs and services; both to ensure they are operating efficiently, and also as material to advocate for themselves to governing bodies.
There are many different criteria that one can use to evaluate an organization, but one that is commonly used in both public and private spheres is the S.W.O.T. analysis. S.W.O.T. stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The Strength and Weakness sections of the analysis are used to look inward: what does the program do exceptionally well? What does it do poorly? Threats and Opportunities then look outward. What exterior circumstances would give the program a chance to grow or improve, and what would cause the program to have difficulties or cease to operate entirely?
By utilizing tools such as the S.W.O.T. analysis, one can identify areas of improvement and ensure that the organization is operating in a healthy and sustainable manner.
In this discussion post, I presented my findings on how to assess summer reading programs. Such programs are designed to prevent the “summer slide”, a phenomenon among school-age children where they lose knowledge over the long summer break. According to my research, the main method of assessing the success of such programs was comparing statistics, such as “budget” versus “books read”, or “registration numbers” vs “completion numbers”. However, much of the literature was quick to caution against removing those statistics from their original context, as then they may provide misleading results. Although often complicated by factors such as district size or demographics, statistics are still considered to be one of the most stable measures of a program’s success.
This paper, as part of investigating Little Free Library as a whole, was an environmental scan consisting of two parts: a P.E.S.T.E.L. analysis and a S.W.O.T. analysis. A P.E.S.T.E.L. analysis describes the interaction between various factors and the program itself, those factors being Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal. By measuring the Little Free Library program by these criteria, one can gain a clear picture of where it currently stands in the the socioeconomic landscape. And by using the S.W.O.T framework for measurement, one can determine actionable areas of improvement.
Application and Conclusion
Like most libraries and nonprofits, effectiveness and budgetary restrictions are a constant concern at Salt Lake Community College. For this reason, the programs and services of the library branches are under almost constant review. This last year, I assisted in assembling the report for our department’s five year review, and I also collect usage statistics every month across our four locations for the Public Services sub-department. By comparing those numbers year-to-year and month-to-month, we are able to better evaluate our programming using hard data. However, this competency has taught me that there are ways to assess such programs and services beyond using hard statistics, and that in order to evaluate something accurately, one must view it within it’s proper context.