Real, meaningful evaluation isn’t just a survey you tack on at the end of a program. It’s an integral piece of your planning process, right from the start. Once you learn to recognize the elements of evaluation and use them with intentionality, you’ll be able to continually grow the impact of your programs and your ability to tell their story.
Why do we evaluate?
You’re busy. Do you really need to add more surveys and statistics to your plate? Wouldn’t that time be better spent planning more programs?
Evaluation is incredibly powerful when done with intention. And the busier you get, the more important it becomes. By helping you make evidence-based decisions about what to do in the future, it actually saves you time and results in better programs for your patrons.
If evaluation feels like nothing more than a time-sucking reporting requirement, that’s often because we are thinking of its purpose like assigning a letter grade — to look back on a completed program in order to quantify and report on how we did. That type of results-focused retrospective is called summative evaluation.
However, in library programming, it can be much more helpful to think of evaluation as formative or developmental. These approaches don’t ask you to wait until the end and judge how you did. They ask you to look at what you’re doing as you’re doing it, so you can learn, adapt, and improve. The purpose isn’t just to tell you if you were successful in the past — it is to help you adapt, now or in the future, to become successful. It’s an active process you participate in and benefit from. Evaluating gives you the opportunity to:
- Learn and grow
- Change and improve
- Make better decisions
- Make a difference
- Build relationships
- Advocate for support and resources
- Tell your story
We may shy away from summative evaluation because we’re afraid of failure. We don’t want to feel like we’re getting a bad grade. We don’t want to be penalized for “poor” results like low attendance, especially if that metric isn’t a meaningful indicator of the impact of our work.
Formative and developmental evaluation remind us that failure isn’t fatal. It isn’t even final. It’s just information. When something doesn’t go the way we hoped it would, we use evaluation to help us understand why and make decisions about what to do differently in the future. Similarly, we don’t get to just rest on our laurels after a success. We also need to think about why we were successful, so we know what to keep doing.
Evaluation isn’t (only) data
The word “evaluation” might immediately conjure up images of statistics and surveys. But those are just tools. They aren’t the only ones, and they’re not always the right ones.
Yes, your evaluation process might include collecting familiar numbers like program attendance. But it might also be qualitative — stories, comments, milestones, experiences. You can gather your information from surveys, but also from discussion, hands-on activities, or observation. You can even combine multiple approaches.
But — and this is a very big “but” — the information you gather isn’t, in itself, evaluation. Evaluation is what you do with that information. It’s how you turn it into learning that will improve your future decisions. For that, you don’t just need data. You need reflection.
At its heart, evaluation is using information to reflect on how well we are achieving meaningful goals, why that is happening, and what to do next.
Evaluation is goal-oriented reflection
The guide for your reflection is the meaningful goal you set for the program.
You might think you don’t set goals for your programs. But you do — even if they are assumed and unspoken. After all, there was a reason you decided to create your program in the first place. There was a difference you wanted to make, a need or desire you wanted to meet, a community you wanted to serve. A motivation.
Name that. Write it down. See? You’ve already started evaluating.
Now you have a goal, but how do you know if it’s meaningful? In particular, how do you know if it is as meaningful as possible to the people you want your program to reach?
Evaluation is not a solo sport. Get your users, your patrons, your partners, and your colleagues in on the process with you. That’s how you’ll know if you’re measuring what really matters.
Building a logic model
The bad news: there is no one-size-fits-all method for evaluation. How best to evaluate a program depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and who you’re doing it with.
The good news: There is a process you can follow to find your unique answer. This powerful approach to evaluation is called outcome-based planning and evaluation (OBPE), sometimes referred to as “backwards planning.”
Here’s the basic idea: start at the end. Create a clear, shared vision of the meaningful goal you want to achieve. Then figure out what information or data will do the best job of telling you if you’re on the right track. Once you know what to measure, design your program to reach those targets, so your limited time and budget are used with clear intention. When you put all these steps together, you have what’s called a logic model — a representation of how each decision leads directly to the goal you’ve set. PLA’s Project Outcome has many excellent resources to help you understand and use this approach.
As you plan and implement, pause periodically to reflect on your progress. Use the model, and the information you collect based on it, to help you consider questions like:
- To what extent is this program on track to achieve its meaningful goal? Why is that happening? How do I know?
- What elements within the program are most helpful in achieving the goal? Which aren’t helping or getting in the way?
- What is happening that I didn’t intend? Why?
- What does all this suggest that I should do? More, less, or differently? On this program, and in the future?
Again, don’t do this alone. Involve the community you hope will attend the program in decisions and reflections. That’s how you’ll know you’re making a real difference.
Conclusion
The key to unlocking your evaluation superpower isn’t your methods — it’s your mindset.
Evaluation is more than collecting and reporting statistics on things you’ve already completed. It’s the continuous process of goal-oriented, evidence-informed reflection you use to improve your current and future programs. It’s most effective when you think of it as an integral and early part of our planning process. It has the most impact when you co-create your vision of success with the people you want to serve.
The clarity you gain and the relationships you build will help you make your programs truly transformative, today and tomorrow.
Evaluation is one of the nine programming competencies identified by ALA's National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment (NILPPA).
This article is made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services grant number RE-256725-OLS-24.
