Assessing the Social Impact of Public Libraries: What the Literature Is Saying
Notice bibliographique
Résumé
Research reports on assessments of the social impact of public libraries over the past decade have revealed commonalities in both methods and findings despite differences in definition, motivation and population. Overwhelmingly positive results provide evidence to support longheld judgments that public libraries have wide ranging positive social impacts upon the communities they serve. This article derives from an assignment for Charles Sturt University's Master of Applied Science (Library and Information Management) ********** The library community has engaged in many forms of evaluation or assessment. One pursued more recently is that of assessing the social impact of the library. In contrast to measuring outputs (services provided and attributes of the services) this represents a movement in the literature towards the investigation of the outcomes (consequences of service use) of library services. It is the relationship between the use of a service and the outcome of that use that defines the impact of the service. (1) Outcomes based research brings to the fore the impacts, the human experience of library use, and gives value to these experiences. This review aims to identify what research has been conducted to assess the social impact of public libraries, in particular. The concepts and tools used in recent attempts to gauge the social impact of public libraries will be reviewed and themes and consistencies that might run through the various studies will be highlighted. This will result in a body of knowledge and tested methodologies on which library managers may draw when measuring the social impact of a public library upon the community it serves. The literature selected for review consists largely of recent reports of primary research findings. Other work utilised in the introductory phase of this report is theoretical library literature and publications collating some of the research literature. Background General literature on the social impact of public libraries An overview of the social impact of the British public library shows that libraries were originally required to have an impact. Public libraries were to divert behaviour from socially destructive activities and expose the populace to literature and acceptable recreation. (2) Today, the UK Library and Information Commission illustrates the need to document the continuing impact of libraries by establishing and funding a research program investigating Value and impact. (3) Likewise the Library Action Council of the Book and Periodical Council, Canada, sought to produce a reference tool for those advocating for public library services. The resultant publication, Dividends: the value of public libraries in Canada (4) (published in Aplis 12(1) March 1999 p4-24 ed), documents the wide body of expert opinion and published statistics which substantiate the social and economic dividends derived from investing in public libraries. Kerslake and Kinnell (5) have also undertaken a literature review of the social impact of public libraries. They concentrated on the opinion leaders, research into specific impacts and on theoretical work, and detected a solid body of literature supporting the existence of wide ranging social impacts from public library services. In the US, the Benton Foundation (6) conducted national research to determine the amount of public support for libraries, revealing `the public stands behind libraries'. In Australia there has been a dearth of study into the social value/impact of public libraries according to Briggs, Guldberg and Sivaciyan. (7) Although Navigating the economy of knowledge (8) was a recent valuable and indepth Australian investigation into the socioeconomic and attitudinal profile of users and nonusers of state and public libraries, it did not directly address the impact of their use. Black and Crann maintain that individual public library services have tended to assess user satisfaction rather than `highly textured issues like the social and economic impact of public libraries'. …
Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.
Comment cette classification a été obtenuedéplier
Prédiction machine sur la base complète
Imitation des enseignantsNi prévalence calibrée, ni vérité terrain. Validation humaine à venir. Le volet Gemma est une étiquette directe du modèle pour chaque travail de la base, lue sur la notice réduite au titre. Le volet Codex est un classifieur appris des 10 348 étiquettes directes de Codex et calibré sur les taux pondérés de l'échantillon; les champs sans appui suffisant ne portent aucun appel Codex. Le mode candidate est l'union des deux volets; le consensus est leur intersection. Ces sorties portent le statut machine_predicted_unvalidated et ne sont pas des étiquettes humaines.
Scores du classifieur distillé par catégorie (deux têtes)
| Catégorie | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Métarecherche | 0,020 | 0,065 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens strict) | 0,002 | 0,001 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens large) | 0,005 | 0,002 |
| Bibliométrie | 0,018 | 0,022 |
| Études des sciences et des technologies | 0,003 | 0,016 |
| Communication savante | 0,016 | 0,024 |
| Science ouverte | 0,004 | 0,005 |
| Intégrité de la recherche | 0,008 | 0,006 |
| Charge utile insuffisante (le modèle a refusé de juger) | 0,004 | 0,002 |
Scores machine (provisoires)
Les deux têtes enseignantes du modèle étudiant, lues sur ce travail. Un score ordonne la base pour la relecture; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie, et le statut de validation accompagne chaque rangée tel quel.
Scores de référence d'un modèle non mature (critères de maturité non atteints, 7 itérations). Un score ordonne; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · tel quel depuis la passe de notation : score_only signifie que le nombre peut ordonner les travaux, et qu'aucune étiquette de catégorie n'en découleClassification
machine, non validéePrédiction automatique; un appel candidat d’une seule source (Gemma direct ou Codex distillé), pas un consensus.
Le détail, modèle par modèle et score par score, se trouve en fin de page sous « Comment cette classification a été obtenue ».