Moving from outputs to outcomes: an increasing focus on impact reshapes how leaders evaluate and design service.(DATA-DRIVEN LIBRARIES)

Something special happens when 150 public library directors, deputy directors, and trustees gather in one room to talk about what their communities get from their libraries. The ideas and examples whip back and forth, as do equally intense questions about roadblocks to all sorts of challenges and strategies for overcoming them. The headiness of this to and fro was palpable at LJ's third Director's Summit, held at Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML), OH, December 5-6, 2011. (For more perspective on the discoveries from this event see Francine Fialkoff's editorial "Moving to Outcomes," p. 8.)

These library leaders came to discuss the urgent need to reshape how library service is evaluated in order to articulate outcomes better to stakeholders and share success stories with the community. Pure data such as gate counts, computer uses, and more aren't as satisfying to those who hold the purse strings as are measurements that articulate impact. "It's pretty simple," said Jeanne Goodrich, executive director, Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, NV. "Why we do what we do drives what we do. An outcome answers the question, 'So what?'"

"It's not good enough for our small business and our entrepreneurial groups to think, 'Yeah, the library's a good place because it helps my kids with their homework,'" said Steven Potter, director of libraries, Mid-Continent Public Library, Independence, MO. "People have to understand that the …