YALSA Evaluation: A Play in Seven Acts

How can we improve without evaluation?  Libraries do not become more innovative by accident and so this is an ongoing and important job.

This is a process that can be extensive, taking months of qualitative and quantitative data from the community.  It can also be as simple as noticing that teens are always moving towards the windows for more light because it is too dark on the other side of the library.  The point is, no matter how much time or resources a library has on hand, evaluation and response to evaluation is important for continual improvement.  This is a good way to learn about your own library!

Big and Official Forms

YALSA, the official Young Adult branch of the American Library Association, actually has a form geared toward Young Adult and Teen library services to help library staff figure out their strengths and weaknesses in multiple categories.  This evaluation tool is a lengthy and slightly daunting form that addresses seven separate areas:

1. Leadership & Professionalism
2. Knowledge of Client Group
3. Communication, Marketing, and Outreach
4. Administration
5. Knowledge of Materials
6. Access To Information
7. Services

Each area is broken into essential elements that a library should evaluate.  Services, for instance, has separate elements for programs for teens inside the library and programs for teens outside of the library.

For the Little Library

I am not saying our, or any library, is necessarily "little."  While they may be relatively small in size, collection, or resources, each library does what they can with what  they have. 

So what if you only have one person, such as myself, to do all the things that encompass Young Adult Library Services including evaluation?  It is still possible, but if you want to be done before Leonardo DiCaprio wins an Oscar, you may want to perform a more abbreviated version of the evaluation.  This will give you a nice overview and also give you time to actually plan and enact any changes to improve the library.

DiCaprio Style

My plan is certainly falling under the latter: minimize evaluation, maximize innovation.  Over the next few weeks, I hope to address each category and consolidate the evaluation to identify strengths and wheedle out any weaknesses.  Afterwards I will need to ask myself some important questions such as:

• What do we need to change?
• What should take priority?
• Do we need to gather more information?
• What can we change?

The final question may take priority, of course.  Money should never get in the way of progress in a library's innovations.  Small changes that address big needs can speak volumes about what a library observes and acts upon for its patrons.

For instance, I have observed and researched that teens are, no doubt, digital natives and practically need to be digitally connected.  The YA/Teen Lounge cannot afford the cost or space to create a space for a teen computer lab, but the solution was an elegant and relatively inexpensive one: buy a power surge protector and an extension cord.  We turned an inaccessible wall outlet, hidden behind book shelves, into a handy and often-utilized Charging Station for teens' personal electronic devices.  Nothing fancy, but its effective!

So, with all this in mind, it's time to evaluate.  What's in store for the library?  It is hard to say at this point, but we never know until we try.