The Challenge Of Assessing Digital Library Services
I created a presentation for the Hawaii Library Association about project planning and assessing the success of digital library services. I worked really hard on it, and I think there’s a lot of good information here that can help libraries trying to plan for a project, assess and existing service, or plan for assessing a new service. Too often we have simply launched online services “because they’re cool,” without really thinking if they are appropriate for our audiences, whether we have the staffing or funding to support them, and whether or not they match up with our organizational priorities. Hopefully, I have presented a framework that can assist in providing well-thought-out digital library services. I believe that this is especially relevant in this time of financial hardship when we are losing staffing and funding and have to make smarter decisions about what projects we pursue. Please feel free to leave your own tips or comments in the Comments section of this post.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
[...] original post here: The Challenge Of Assessing Digital Library Services | Librarian in … By admin | category: library services | tags: assessing-the-success, association, hawaii, [...]
November 25th, 2009 at 12:46 am
[...] User Experience, outreach | Tags: Librarian in Black, social software, technology assessment | Librarian in Black has posted a useful way of planning and assessing technology implementation for [...]
November 30th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
What a spectacular presentation! We so often launch these new technologies without thinking too far ahead. And how many of us have looked at our digital services on a cost/use basis? Huh? I’d guess fewer than 5%. Sad, really. We’re librarians. Our job is research, information, and finding data. How sad that we can’t use our skills with our own work. Thank you Sarah for making this a visible point of contention.