These videos were great and I have a much clearer understanding of the evaluation process. I love the storytelling worksheet and have uploaded mine to Drive.
Hi Lynda – Thanks for sharing your worksheet! I like how your story incorporates a couple different opportunities for teens (participating in summer reading as well as volunteering for it). And, I think that “the library is a great place for your teens to be during the summer” would be a great tag line!
Thanks for this series of videos, they’ve been so informative! I’m working on the activities at the moment, but I have a question about accessibility – would we be able to cover how to make data visualizations/analysis accessible to folks with different needs (low vision, color blindness, etc.)? Thanks a ton!
Hello. I have uploaded my story to Google Docs. Not exactly as riveting as the others! We are a small library and I am thinking still catching our breath from COVID.
I think is an important story to tell at any time and especially during COVID! One recommendation – you want your story to be centered around an individual, so I would use a specific name. and tell the story of one person’s experience. Then, when you get to the “tie the story to library statistics” part, you can include the information about other outcomes for seniors, such as connecting with family, paying bills, etc. Thanks for sharing your worksheet!
Helllo. Thnking again about trendline data. Can and should you trust trendine data if you are including this past wacky year of 2020 when everything got completey skewed? Will that throw off your trendline?
Hi Tracy – Excellent question! Since 2020 is an outlier, it would definitely skew your trend line (no surprise). Excel calculates confidence intervals assuming that the data follows a normal distribution. The more years (or months, etc) you use in your trend line, the more accurate the forecast. I suggest running your trend line without 2020. Depending on how you plan to use your analysis (management decision / board report), explain what 2020 statistics are in an accompanying narrative.
For your own curiosity, you could go ahead and include 2020 in the trend line with 2021 as the forecast year. Be sure to change the R-squared value to be as close to 1.00 as possible. It will not be very close because of the outlier situation.
Thanks for sharing your worksheet! What a great initiative. My one suggestion is to frame the story around one person and use a name for them. Storytelling research indicates that people respond best to stories when they are about a specific person. You can then include the information about the 600 students participating in the initiative and the 60 partnerships in the “tie story to library statistics” part.
Great exercises! I actually uploaded TWO Storytelling worksheets…one that is more for an internal stakeholder and one that is external. Loved benchmarking, loved trend lines! Gave me great data that I knew anecdotally but it was super to see in actual data!
Hi Robyn – I’m so glad you’re enjoying the exercises and see how having ‘actual’ data can help you. I can attest to the power of statistics and making data driven decisions.
I got my worksheet uploaded to the Google Drive – I had it written out but forgot to do it sooner, haha. This is one of my favorite stories because it’s from my branch before I moved to the makerspace. The toddler mentioned in the story now has a baby sister to show the ropes at Story Times!
These videos were great and I have a much clearer understanding of the evaluation process. I love the storytelling worksheet and have uploaded mine to Drive.
Hi Lynda – Thanks for sharing your worksheet! I like how your story incorporates a couple different opportunities for teens (participating in summer reading as well as volunteering for it). And, I think that “the library is a great place for your teens to be during the summer” would be a great tag line!
Thanks for this series of videos, they’ve been so informative! I’m working on the activities at the moment, but I have a question about accessibility – would we be able to cover how to make data visualizations/analysis accessible to folks with different needs (low vision, color blindness, etc.)? Thanks a ton!
Hi Allie – great question! We probably won’t have time to cover the accessibility issue during our live session, but here are a couple resources you can reference: https://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2016/4/examining-data-viz-rules-dont-use-red-green-together-53463 and https://accessibility.digital.gov/visual-design/getting-started/.
I just uploaded my storytelling doc to Drive. Kinda sappy, but true (more or less).
Thank for sharing! I think that sappiness works well here! You can’t lose with a grandparent/grandchild relationship + a dog.
Hello. I have uploaded my story to Google Docs. Not exactly as riveting as the others! We are a small library and I am thinking still catching our breath from COVID.
Hi Tracy,
I think is an important story to tell at any time and especially during COVID! One recommendation – you want your story to be centered around an individual, so I would use a specific name. and tell the story of one person’s experience. Then, when you get to the “tie the story to library statistics” part, you can include the information about other outcomes for seniors, such as connecting with family, paying bills, etc. Thanks for sharing your worksheet!
Helllo. Thnking again about trendline data. Can and should you trust trendine data if you are including this past wacky year of 2020 when everything got completey skewed? Will that throw off your trendline?
Hi Tracy – Excellent question! Since 2020 is an outlier, it would definitely skew your trend line (no surprise). Excel calculates confidence intervals assuming that the data follows a normal distribution. The more years (or months, etc) you use in your trend line, the more accurate the forecast. I suggest running your trend line without 2020. Depending on how you plan to use your analysis (management decision / board report), explain what 2020 statistics are in an accompanying narrative.
For your own curiosity, you could go ahead and include 2020 in the trend line with 2021 as the forecast year. Be sure to change the R-squared value to be as close to 1.00 as possible. It will not be very close because of the outlier situation.
I just upload my story to the Google Drive. I really enjoyed this challenge and was happy to share this story.
For more information on the Promise Zone Initiative, check out this link: https://www.evansvillegov.org/city/department/division.php?structureid=199
Enjoy!
Hi Katie,
Thanks for sharing your worksheet! What a great initiative. My one suggestion is to frame the story around one person and use a name for them. Storytelling research indicates that people respond best to stories when they are about a specific person. You can then include the information about the 600 students participating in the initiative and the 60 partnerships in the “tie story to library statistics” part.
Great exercises! I actually uploaded TWO Storytelling worksheets…one that is more for an internal stakeholder and one that is external. Loved benchmarking, loved trend lines! Gave me great data that I knew anecdotally but it was super to see in actual data!
Hi Robyn – I’m so glad you’re enjoying the exercises and see how having ‘actual’ data can help you. I can attest to the power of statistics and making data driven decisions.
I got my worksheet uploaded to the Google Drive – I had it written out but forgot to do it sooner, haha. This is one of my favorite stories because it’s from my branch before I moved to the makerspace. The toddler mentioned in the story now has a baby sister to show the ropes at Story Times!