Impact Survey Aims to Help Libraries Increase, Explain Their Worth

All librarians want to serve their communities and patrons as best they can, but knowing how best to provide that service isn’t always easy. The demands of day to day duties, not to mention privacy concerns, can make it hard for staffers to learn the finer details of how patrons are using their services. Without a clear picture of how services like computer access are being put to use, it can be difficult to determine how to fine tune them to the needs of users. Now, researchers at the University of Washington (UW) iSchool have introduced the Impact Survey, a tool that lets patrons anonymously report on how they use library technology while they’re using it, helping librarians understand how—and when—patrons are interacting with the access to technological resources that they provide—and to demonstrate the value of those services to local governments.