1. Introduction
The VITAL Project was designed to develop and test methodologies for the assessment of the impact and value of end-user ICT services, including but not limited to Internet access, in public libraries and to disseminate this knowledge to policy makers and others. These methodologies were developed within the context of international and national work on performance measurement and service quality in electronic library contexts, of the Audit Commission's statutory framework for public library performance indicators, and of the work of CIPFA on public library statistics. The outcomes of the Project are both a set of methodologies for use by librarians and others for management purposes and to collect convincing evidence of use, impact and value; and evidence, drawn from the test implementations of VITAL methodologies carried out during the project, of the value and impact that end-user services can have. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches have been used in the project. The methodologies themselves are presented in a separate Workbook.
1.1 Overall Aims
The stated overall aims of the Project were:
- To develop and implement methodologies suited to the evaluation of end-user ICT-based services offered by public libraries;
- To gather and disseminate authoritative information on the value of such services and their impacts;
- To advise policy makers on the value and impacts of different services and of how values and impacts can be measured;
- To further develop UK expertise and leadership in this field.
The achievement of these aims would, it was argued, bring benefits to:
- policy makers, who would have access to methodologies and data which would enable the contribution of public libraries to the national lifelong learning initiative and to the networked information society to be assessed and evaluated. It would also underpin UK leadership of this area in the international arena;
- public library managers, who would have a new management tool developed in accordance with accepted standards to enable them to plan and evaluate services;
- audit authorities, who would have a standard methodology available to them to assess an ever-increasing proportion of services in public libraries;
- customers of public libraries, who would have meaningful information on the services available to them
- collaborators with public libraries (such as universities, further education institutions, businesses and the voluntary sector) who would have available information on the value, impact and range of services provided by their public library partners and thus on collaborative possibilities;
- researchers and systems suppliers, who would have a set of data and methodologies which would provide a basis for R&D activity in the development of services.
1.2 Objectives
The Project also developed some specific objectives which gave direction to its work. These were:
- To explore the current and emerging policy framework for ICT developments in UK public libraries;
- To explore the literature of end-user ICT in public libraries and of the evaluation of such services, supplementing the preparatory work undertaken in advance of the Project;
- To research appropriate methodologies for investigating these issues, with emphasis on methodologies which could be used by non-expert staff in public libraries and which were economic to apply;
- To develop selected methodologies into a standard VITAL set, and to document the approach;
- To train staff in the three partner authorities in the application of the methodologies;
- To apply the methodologies and analyse the results;
- To document the results of the test implementations of the methodologies;
- To assess the need for further work in this area;
- To disseminate the results of the Project.
1.3 Formative Evaluation
The Project took a self-critical approach and invited members of the Advisory Committee, and other experts, to evaluate approaches and findings and to offer constructive feedback. The activity at the core of the Project, namely the development and testing of the methodologies, proceeded in an iterative manner so that findings could be fed back into the project as a whole. In addition, the project management methodology, with clear phases and milestones, enabled the project to remain on course and to deliver its results in a timely fashion. Dissemination, and not least the Expert Workshop held as part of the Project, provided peer feedback which was of immense value. In addition, the close involvement of senior managers from the three participating authorities ensured that current professional issues were given due consideration. Finally, the expert input of John Allred, who contributed to the Project in a consultancy capacity, provided a continuation with cognate developments, not least the Open for Learning work funded by the Department for Education & Employment.
In this way the Project paid attention to process, performance and impact issues and was able to modify its activities so as to maximise the learning that was achieved from them. A five-month non-funded phase at the end of the Project provided the opportunity to consolidate findings and reflect on their significance
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