Now What?
“Evaluation should not be conducted simply to prove that a project worked, but also to improve the way it works.”
— W. K. Kellogg Foundation Evaluation Handbook
An evaluation is only as good as it is useful—and actually used! Presenting results to various stakeholders in an appropriate manner will encourage them to use the evaluation in the way you planned. As you develop your argument, consider the audience for the evaluation. Is it a partner? Is it your immediate supervisor? The library director? Your team? The city council? You will likely have multiple audiences. Your primary audience is the audience who will directly use the answer to the question you are asking, or are the target of the argument you are building. However, they are not the only audience. A secondary audience includes people who will be affected by the evaluation conclusions, even though they are not direct decision-makers (this might include staff, partners’ staff, or library users). Your tertiary audience includes people further removed from the project but who may still be interested in the report (perhaps the general public, or librarians from other systems).1 The nature of your audiences will influence how you present your results.
“Whether or not your project goes as planned, it is important to communicate results of the project effectively to people who have the potential to extend, replicate, build on, or learn from your work.”
— CAISE Principal Investigator’s Guide
The point of evaluation is to obtain information that can be used constructively moving forward, so be honest. If something was less than successful, don’t try to sweep it under the rug—figure out why and what you or someone else can do about it next time.
Communicating results
The evaluation report
The evaluation report will mirror the evaluation plan to some extent. Your report should include:
- An executive summary
- A description of the project
- The purpose of the evaluation
- A description of your evaluation questions
- Descriptions of the evaluation activities, including participants and data collection methods
- How the data was analyzed
- Results of the analysis
- Recommendations indicated by the results (see below)
There are many other ways you can share your evaluation results to interested audiences.
- Professional gatherings. Did you learn something unexpected from your program? Was it a spectacular success (or a spectacular failure)? You can share your findings at a professional conference. Even a presentation at a small, local gathering can be a great avenue to communicate your work.
- Community events. Discussing the impact of your library at community events can help you find potential partners and allies.
- Social media. The library’s social media can be used to communicate results to the community, particularly if you have photos or videos to share. It can also be used to share information with other professionals.
- Promotional materials. If you are evaluating an ongoing program, share your results in the marketing materials you use for the program. They can also be used in library-wide promotional materials. Posters, particularly in the teen space, can be useful.
- Displays. If your participants created things during the program, put them on display in the library. Portfolios (physical or digital) can be used to display the creative works of one learner or a group of them. They can be accompanied by text that helps tell the story and answer the evaluation question.
- Case studies tell a story of one person, event, activity, etc. in a narrative format.
Remember to tailor your language and presentation to your audience. Community members, for instance, won’t all be familiar with “jargony” library or educational terms.
Using results
At the beginning of the evaluation process, you had a reason for conducting an evaluation. Now that you’ve completed that effort, it’s time to use what you’ve discovered. Your evaluation report will likely include some recommendations based on the findings and your original questions and purpose for the evaluation. The utility of your work doesn’t have to stop there, however—there are probably lessons learned that will be useful in other ways.
At least some of your recommendations should address your evaluation questions. But you may also have uncovered unexpected results that lead to recommendations as well. These should also be included.
State the recommendations clearly, and link them to the evidence you reported earlier in the evaluation report. Some of your recommendations might involve:
- Offering the same program to a new audience
- Putting more resources into the program (staff, money, tools, research)
- Changing communication or marketing strategies
- Addressing problems in the program (with or without specific strategies to do so, depending on the information on hand)
Moving forward
Don’t let the hard work you’ve done evaluating and assessing your initiative gather dust after the final report is finished.
- Did you learn anything that can be put to use in another initiative?
- Did you learn anything that indicates a larger or more systemic change needs to happen in the library?
- If the initiative is ongoing, how will you continue assessing or evaluating it moving forward?