Breakout: What Makes Your Community Special: Conducting a Well-Rounded Needs Assessment
In our increasingly diverse world, understanding your community’s needs, interests, assets and goals is essential to provide excellent library services. This session will introduce techniques that work together to create a well-rounded and practical community assessment. These include defining a research goal, finding and using published community data, and techniques to fill information gaps. We will explore indicators that may highlight inequities in the community, as well as approaches for identifying community assets. Participants will learn strategies for synthesizing their findings and communicating effectively to key audiences.