Outcomes-Based Evaluation in a Community Health Library

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, libraries are being asked for more accountability. What benefits or impacts do the services provided have on the people who use them? This paper briefly discusses outcomes evaluation and reports the results of an outcomes-based evaluation of the reference interaction at Munson Community Health Library. The methodology for this study is based on the work of Durrance and Pettigrew, who with IMLS grant support, created a toolkit: How Libraries and Librarians Help: Putting Outcome Evaluation in Context: A Toolkit(www.si. umich.edu/libhelp/toolkit). Results of the study validate that the Community Health Library fulfills its mission of providing information to patrons that supports informed decision-making and lifestyle changes.

Key Words:

• Outcomes
• outcome evaluation
• consumer health
• consumer health libraries
• research