What strategies would you recommend for the evaluation of the usefulness or
success of the reading and literature promotional activities run by either a
school library or a public library?
A lot would depend on the type of promotional activity undertaken. Some activities could be evaluated by a simple headcount, while other activities might require a more detailed analysis.
Strategies to evaluate the success or otherwise of an author talk could be a headcount and observation of audience interest and participation in question time and book signing. Activities like children's story times could be evaluated by a headcount of children and adults attending. For ongoing activities like story times, statistics could be compared over a period of time to gauge continuing interest and any growth in attendance.
The effectiveness of promotional activities like themed displays is not always easy to measure and could rely a lot on circulation reports and staff observation of borrowings and returns. Reports would need to be tailored to reflects statistics for the specific genre/author/subject and for a defined time period.
Useful information about the effectiveness of the promotion could be gleaned by reporting statistics for a time frame spanning from before the promotion to a period after the promotion. As well, anecdotal evidence from staff will form a large part of feedback on what strategies prove more effective than others.
A difficult topic to tackle as there is not a lot of hard evidence
ReplyDelete