Earlier this week I attended a fantastic symposium hosted by Dysart & Jones, Defining New Metrics for Library Success. Held at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, the 2-day event focused on libraries in all sectors who must work to identify their stakeholders, and the unique value libraries can demonstrate to those stakeholders.
Attended by over 100 information professionals from across North America, sessions covered the opportunity and importance for libraries to understand the motivations of their stakeholders, and to build strategies for data collection to support their success stories and inform stakeholders to make good decisions.
I presented the study I co-authored, “So Much More: The Economic Impact of the Toronto Public Library to the City of Toronto.” The focus of this presentation was the importance of knowing exactly what evidence your stakeholders need — and then presenting that evidence in a way that’s easy to understand. In the case of this study, we were fortunate in that Toronto City Council specified exactly what they wanted, and in turn we were very clear on what evidence, backed-up by data, that we needed to provide.
I have posted my presentation on SlideShare; all presentations can be viewed via the Defining New Metrics for Library Success web site.