On-Demand Webinars

As part of its ongoing work to support the public library’s role in creating healthy communities, PLA is taking steps to increase consumer education around health insurance and information. How can your library help? This free on-demand webinar helps public library staff better understand the importance of health literacy, how to promote accurate health information and resources, and how to develop community partnerships to broaden the scope of a healthy community.

Improve the quality of out-of-school time or after school programs at the point of service—the place where the youth and staff come together. Through a series of trainings and assessment tools from the David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality, Houston Public Library made changes to create engaging programs where youth want to be instead of have to be. Houston Public Library addresses how the library's first year participation in the Youth Program Quality Intervention program has shown distinct improvements in the program using assessments.

Libraries may feel too overwhelmed with limited staff and resources to take on something new like measuring outcomes, which is why starting small and scaling up is the best method for success. Starting small helps libraries increase their staff’s comfort with and expertise in outcomes measurement; capitalize on trial-and-error learnings; and build a structure for peer support of data collection and use. Hear from a veteran Project Outcome user on their experience starting small by evaluating the library’s Small Business series and scaling up to library-wide programming.

The 2018 class of ALA Emerging Leaders was charged with identifying data competency training resources for the Public Library Association. It has become increasingly important for library professionals to be able to gather, analyze and communicate data in order to navigate a data-rich world and make data-driven decisions related to funding, policies and other resources needed to support the communities you serve. Learn how the website created by the Emerging Leaders serves as a professional development guide that can help move library staff toward becoming more data competent.

Outcome measurement is a way for libraries to assess their impact on the people they serve and helps libraries answer the question, “What good did we do?” In some instances, libraries may need to measure outcomes over a longer period of time to demonstrate the good they’re doing. Logic models are used to develop a sequence of steps needed to achieve a desired outcome and measure impact. This webinar will walk through the logic model process to help libraries identify short-term, intermediate, and long-term outcomes.

It’s never too early to start planning for next year’s summer learning programs! Measuring the outcomes of programs and services helps libraries with decision making, program improvements, advocacy, and funding requests. PLA staff gathered stories from libraries participating in Project Outcome to create implementation tips and best practices to help libraries feel confident implementing Summer Reading surveys next year. Learn how libraries have used the standardized Summer Reading surveys to measure the success of their summer learning programs and demonstrate their impact in the community.

Outcome measurement is a way for libraries to assess their impact on the people they serve and helps libraries answer the question, “What good did we do?” With a vast number of ways to collect outcomes, it may be overwhelming to identify which data collection methods to use. Choosing the methodology also depends on the library’s learning goals, time limitations, staff capacity and more. This on-demand webinar is designed to help libraries learn what methods are available to them, and the benefits and challenges to each. It highlights several methods, with an emphasis on focus groups.

Outcome measurement is a way for libraries to assess their impact on the people they serve and helps libraries answer the question, “What good did we do?” Libraries may need to measure outcomes for a variety of reasons—from measuring and improving impact, to better managing services and resources, to demonstrating a need for funding or other support. This on-demand webinar will help libraries develop their own outcome measures based on program goals and implement those measures through effective survey design.

Are you starting a partnership or have an existing partnership and want to measure the results of your combined efforts? A collaborative partnership is about having a common goal around better serving the ever-changing needs of your community and measuring outcomes can help you and your partner identify better ways to align your work to deliver more impactful community-based services. This on-demand webinar focuses on how to plan for collaborative outcome measurement with a partner, with a focus on partnerships between libraries and schools to stop the summer slide.

PLA has two free tools that can help you provide and measure digital literacy services. DigitalLearn.org provides tutorials on essential basic technologies designed for use in library patron training, and also offers the ability to create a custom site branded for your library. Project Outcome provides simple survey tools to measure the outcomes of digital literacy programs and services. This free on-demand webinar shows you how to use both of these tools together to augment your digital literacy training and measure the impact your digital literacy services have in the community.