Breakout: “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?” DATA FOR STAKEHOLDERS
Libraries have 4 critical stakeholder groups: Board, Funders (usually the City or local government), Residents (who may vote for funding), Residents who use the Library (Patrons, Members or Customers), Residents who don’t use the Library (Potential Members, Potential Customers), and Staff. At a Library in Ontario, we focused on 3 important stakeholder groups: Staff, Board, and City Funders. Although these stakeholders have different ‘lenses’ through which they view, hear and (hopefully) use data, they all share one common goal: using data for discussions, decisions, strategies and solutions. Using a two-pronged yet aligned approach we renamed and reframe data in ways to engage staff in gathering, managing and discussing statistics and program outcomes, and to deepen the understanding of the Library as a community contributor. During the session participants will try out our approach of creating granular Branch Dashboards for the Staff stakeholders and strategic infographics for the Board stakeholders to see what may apply for their specific situations. Our approach is based on 3 key questions: What? So What? Now What? blended with considerable humour – and humor.