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Tamquita Johnson

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12/12/23

Evaluation Plan: Monroe County Public Library Teen Homework Help

In many communities, the library is a pillar of the neighborhood. It's one of the few places to

access free resources or services. The Monroe County Public Library is a neighborhood hub for

many local young people and families to gather and use resources. This Public library is located

in Bloomington, Indiana, in the downtown area in the heart of the city. The newly renovated

Monroe County Public Library building opened in May 1997 (Library History, n.d.). Before the

renovation, the library had 37,000 square feet, but now has 137,000 square feet (Library History,

n.d.). While many services were expanded or improved, like the Audio-Visual Department, the

Children's Department, education services, and many others (Library History, n.d.). The Library

supports many different teen programming like eLibrary Access for Students, Teen Library Blog

and events.

Monroe Country Public Library aims to provide free and equitable access to information,

materials, and services and support their community through reading and literacy-focused

programs and services (Mission, n.d.). Promote inclusive and diverse environments in public

spaces (Mission, n.d.). One of the ways they support the community is through the Teem

Homework Help program, is focused on math and science subjects. It is located on the ground

floor in the large study room; it is free and has in-person sessions. Normally, it is math and
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science focused, but individuals can receive help on other subjects. These are the intended users

for this service at the Bloomington Public Library location. This service is also available at four

other locations throughout Indiana. Also, they aim to support their community by providing

services and a safe space for young individuals to receive homework help and access other

resources they may not have access to in their homes.

One of the goals of the Teen Homework Help program is to continue and improve teen

engagement and virtual services in programs. Assessing the effectiveness of this program will

benefit the community as a whole. It would allow the library to improve the program and create

new programs to meet its strategic goals for 2021-2023." Continue and enhance teen engagement

through various kits/pick-up items, virtual services, and programs ("Monroe County Public

Library Strategic Direction Report 2021–2023," 2020). "Increase awareness of programs and

services within community network ("Monroe County Public Library Strategic Direction Report

2021–2023," 2020). Some of the feedback received from library patrons listed in the strategic

goal as themes to improve I have listed some examples. More evening and weekend programs,

especially children’s programs, More adult programming, More programming for adults in their

20s, More STEAM and technology programs for every age, Adults: basic computer skills and

workforce network ("Monroe County Public Library Strategic Direction Report 2021–2023,"

2020). This feedback data was evaluated through a survey given to library patrons. The library

team divided and reviewed the 2,669 survey responses network ("Monroe County Public Library

Strategic Direction Report 2021–2023," 2020). The team focused primarily on a single

qualitative open-ended question “One way Monroe County Public Library can better serve me,

and my family is?” network ("Monroe County Public Library Strategic Direction Report 2021–
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2023," 2020). This information was extremely helpful in understanding how they reached their

strategic goals for some the common these listed as well as their action items. They do list some

the library’s accomplishments towards their goals and action like increased attendance in the

virtual programming and completed renovations to the public bathrooms and other common area.

I learned a lot about evaluations and different methods from The Evaluation and Measurement of

Library Services by Joseph Matthews this semester. Some of the evaluation methods that would

work best for the Monroe County Public Library Teen Homework Help program focusing on

how effective this program is for teens by conducting interviews, focus groups, observation and

surveys . These methods seem to be the most applicable to this program type to understand its

effectiveness truly. One example of an approach is a delayed survey. At the Hong Kong

University of Science and Technology Library, they formally assessed their instruction program

in 2004 (Wong et al., 2006). One of the methods they used was a delayed survey to measure the

enduring impact of library instruction (Wong et al., 2006). Staff administered a survey sometime

after the classes were conducted to allow the attendees to apply what they learned (Wong et al.,

2006). We could offer surveys to attendees after a certain period to understand effectiveness and

what knowledge or improvement the attendees gained. In other words, was it helpful or efficient

for them? We could look at how many people are signing up at any time. We also can visually

observe how many people show up for help at that specific time.

A study conducted at Government Degree College library assessed user satisfaction with library

resources and services. The study operators distributed 155 questionnaires and received 135

responses, at an 87% response rate (Shah, n.d.). The questions focused on the library experience
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and how frequently did they visit. The results concluded that most of the users visit the library

weekly rather than daily, and they are unsatisfied with the services and building access

availability (Shah, n.d.). Some additional tools that I would use in this evaluation are

interviews/focus groups; both interviews and focus groups are conducted with evaluation and

program/initiative stakeholders (Evaluation Resources, n.d.). It could be administrated in person,

over the phone, or via video. While conducting an interview, the questions can be open-ended to

focus on the respondent's answer without creating groupthink (Evaluation Resources, n.d.). For

any of these evaluation methods to happen, they first need consent from their parents because

this service is for minors. We would need access to the library database that hosts the signup

sheet and the computer for an electronic survey. If we're doing interviews or focus groups, we

need access to a quiet room to conduct interviews or a focus group session.

Visual observations can be done at any time during the session scheduled time. The observer

should focus on how many people are there, who is engaging, who is getting their homework

done, who's asking for help, who is actively involved in what the facilitator is saying, and who is

asking for help when needed. The questions we would include in the survey and the interviews

should be factual and specific to the respondents. We can use factual questions to determine the

respondent's age, gender, and so forth (Matthews, 2007b). They are also subjective when

presented to the respondent. We could also use self-perception questions that focus on the

respondents' opinions of themselves (Matthews, 2007b). Thus, we can gauge how helpful the

service is; we can ask questions like did you feel comfortable asking for help? Did you get help

with your homework? How are your grades? Did you see an improvement in your grade at
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school? Is the environment okay, and do you have enough time during the session to ask

questions?

Another example of using observation as a method at Loughborough University's Pilkington

Library, which opened its flexible learning space in 2005(Bryant, 2009). Conducted a project

using the ethnography observation method, a form of participant observation most commonly

utilized by anthropologists (Bryant, 2009). This type of method typically is not used in LIS;

according to Hider & Pymm the method was used in just 3.7% of papers published in high-

profile LIS journals in 2005 (Hider & Pymm, 2008). This research project in 2007 focused on

what patrons were utilizing the space for. The study involved observation at many different times

of day across several weeks (Bryant, 2009). The researcher spent a total of 40 hours conducting

fieldwork, recording observations in an electronic field diary (Bryant, 2009). What they

determined was that the patrons were using it for study as well as social space. I foresee this

study's results also showing up in the observation method at Monroe County Public Library.

The data collected from these methods should be represented as a diagram showing the relation

between variable quantities, whether a pie graph or a column, depending on the data type and

size. One of our course requirements and materials we worked on during the semester was doing

the LinkedIn learnings and one in particular that helped evaluate raw data. Data visualization's

best practices course for LinkedIn learning enabled me to work through how to visualize large

and small data sets properly. It showed me how to leverage pre-attentive or subconscious

processing to get the most out of the data visualization (Balliett, 2021). The learning courses

explained how to manipulate the data story into the correct chart or graph to represent the
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information accurately. One example was pulling Monroe County Public System 2021 program

attendance numbers based on one central branch and fifteen other branches. This data can

provide us with an overall analysis of how the teen programming is doing across branches in

Monroe County. Teen Homework Help program is offered at three out of sixteen locations. This

data could be combined with the data gathered from surveys, interviews, and focus groups to

better understand where the library meets the strategic goals in teen programming.

Pulling data from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. I was able to compile data from

the Library Search & Compare tool. Searching for my library in the data bases and filtering for

services and or programs comparison information. What is represented in the chart is the total

program attendance per total and per one thousand people categorized by children’s program

attendance, young adult program attendance, all other program attendance, and asynchronous

program attendance. The pie charts show that we only have 3% attendance for young adult

programming across branches (Library Search & Compare, n.d.). The highest percentage at 53%

is sitting with programming that maybe labeled differently according to chart. This information

could be significant in the evaluation process of teen programming across branches and in

addition to evaluation methods.

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Recommendations to implement this type of evaluation are to lay out a resource plan, both high-

level and low. Assign tasks to individuals with completion dates and milestones and document

everything. Make sure all resources have been given to specific groups. Create a contingency

plan to determine the roles and responsibilities and delegation of tasks. Prepare and document for

applicable stakeholders. Determine how the data should be handed off, both in a physical form

and in a visual presentation. Get legal sign-off for any evaluation involving minors and any other

consent needed. Get documented feedback on administrators' experience performing the

evaluation methods. The timeline for the proposed evolution process should be after a year. The

timeline should be aligned with the school year because we're discussing a homework-help
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program. The majority of the session attendance will be happening throughout the school year,

so that will be from August to December. Then, January to June would be the best times to

conduct the evolve the evaluation, and that gives you enough time to gather and input your data

and then regroup do more evaluation methods if results aren’t conclusive. The timeline for the

evolution can also be broken up into simple quarter one and quarter two depending on when first

stage ends. Which can also be aligned to the Indiana State school schedule, or another option

could be doing the summer stop in May to review data .

This evaluation plan could allow the library to engage with the community on free programming.

The patrons would appreciate the library's investment in their feedback. The methods I included

are universal and can be applied to other programs and services. This evaluation would be very

impactful in understanding how to reach their strategic goals and the overall sentiment of the

community concerning the library's services and programming effectiveness.

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References

Wong, G., Chan, D. L., & Chu, S. (2006). Assessing the Enduring Impact of Library Instruction
Programs. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 32(4), 384–395.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2006.03.010

Monroe County Public Library Strategic Direction Report 2021–2023. (2020). In Monroe
County Public Library. Retrieved December 11, 2023, from https://mcpl.info/about/plans-and-
reports-archives

Shah, U. A. (n.d.). User Satisfaction on Library Resources and Services; A case study of
Government Degree College Sabir Abad (Karak), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/5109/

Evaluation resources. (n.d.). Institute of Museum and Library Services.

https://www.imls.gov/research-evaluation/evaluation-resources

Matthews, J. R. (2007b). The evaluation and measurement of library services.

http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA8359577X

Balliett, A. (2021, December 13). Best practices of data visualization - Data Visualization: Best
Practices [Video]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/learning/data-visualization-best-
practices-14429760/best-practices-of-data-visualization-14398183?u=76361090

Library search & compare. (n.d.). Institute of Museum and Library Services.
https://www.imls.gov/search-compare

Mission. (n.d.). Monroe County Public Library, Indiana - mcpl.info.

https://mcpl.info/about/mission

Hider, P., & Pymm, B. (2008). Empirical research methods reported in high-profile LIS journal

literature. Library & Information Science Research, 30(2), 108–114.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2007.11.007

Bryant, J. (2009). What are students doing in our library? Ethnography as a method of exploring

library user behavior. Library and Information Research, Volume 33 Number(103), 3–9.

https://lirgjournal.org.uk/index.php/lir/article/download/95/151/557
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Library History. (n.d.). Monroe County Public Library, Indiana - mcpl.info.

https://mcpl.info/geninfo/library-history