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From Insight to Action: Using Public Library Data for Decision-Making, Strategic Planning, and Advocacy

From Insight to Action: Using Public Library Data for Decision-Making, Strategic Planning, and Advocacy

February 24, 2025, 1:00-2:30 Eastern/12:00-1:30 Central/11:00-12:30 Mountain/10:00-11:30 Pacific

Register

The Research Institute for Public Libraries’ (RIPL) curriculum is based on the steps involved in conducting an evaluation:

  • Identify the purpose of your evaluation
  • Plan your evaluation
  • Collect data
  • Analyze data
  • Use data – for management, program improvement, strategic planning, and advocacy

In this webinar – the final in the 12 Months to Better Library Data webinar series – we will focus on the last step by learning about how three public library workers have used data for decision-making, strategic planning, and advocacy:

Sarah Rankin (New York Public Library) will discuss the New York Public Library’s approach to monitoring equitable service usage and delivery, presenting its equity ratio as an example of metric construction, documentation, and deployment.

Brenda Marshall (Pine River Library, Colorado) will discuss an interview project Pine River Library engaged in to ask community leaders, local government representatives, faith leaders, and others some big picture questions about their community’s needs, assets, and desires. Based on the results, their library developed a strategic plan that guides many day to day decisions.

Jennifer Gibson (St. Louis County Library) will discuss data-centric methods used at St. Louis County Library to inform operational decisions about staffing levels, and to develop effective marketing strategies for the Library Foundation’s annual appeal and to draw back lapsed customers.

Join us to learn about each instructor’s successes, challenges, and lessons learned while working on these data projects, and to be inspired in your own data work.

This session is part of the 12 Months to Better Library Data Webinar Series, made possible by funding from the Mellon Foundation.

Instructors:

Sarah Rankin
Senior Quantitative Researcher in Strategy and Public Impact
New York Public Library

Sarah Rankin is a Senior Quantitative Researcher in Strategy and Public Impact at the New York Public Library. She conducts analyses of the Library’s activity data, with an emphasis on patron usage, demographics, and impact. Prior to NYPL, she was a researcher at LISC, a national community development intermediary, where she focused on neighborhood change and workforce & financial capacity programs. Sarah has a Master’s in Public Policy from Duke University and a BA in History from Yale University.

Brenda Marshall
Director
Pine River Library (Bayfield, Colorado)

Originally from England, Brenda moved to Bayfield in Southwest Colorado almost thirty years ago. Even though her childhood wish was to be a librarian she instead trained in social work and worked with people with disabilities for many years. Eleven years ago she started working at the Pine River Library and has served as director for the past four years.

Jennifer Gibson
Assistant Director of Strategic Initiatives
St. Louis County Library

Jennifer Gibson is Assistant Director of Strategic Initiatives at St. Louis County Library in Missouri. In this role she develops the organizational strategic plan, oversees diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives, & performs all grant writing and administration for St. Louis County Library and the St. Louis County Library Foundation. Jennifer was a 2022 Library Journal Mover & Shaker and a 2011 ALA Spectrum and ARL Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce Scholar. In 2023, she founded the Missouri Library Association’s first diversity committee, the You Belong Committee. Through this committee Jennifer established a statewide initiative to retain a diverse library workforce called the You Belong Scholar Program, which was recently funded by the IMLS Laura Bush 21st Century Grant Program. Jennifer holds an MLIS from San Jose State University, a JD from Pepperdine University, and a BA in Geology from the University of Southern California. She serves on the PLA Measurement Evaluation & Assessment Advisory Group and on the POV on PBS Library Board.