Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Data is Not a Dirty Word!

The changes in our library have been years in the making and influenced by so many factors, but (gasp) not necessarily data driven.  Don’t get me wrong, we haven’t been blindly grasping at change; it’s just that our transformation has been more influenced by research and observation. Research that included reaching out to our student body with surveys and focus groups and then extending beyond our walls to others who embrace the same student-centered philosophy. Observations that made it easy to look around our school and recognize that a large percentage of our population was not utilizing the library and its resources. So in our case, research + observation = change!

Informally, we have been continuously monitoring progress…noticing students in the library that we hadn’t seen before, scheduling classes who didn’t typically use library services, teaching more lessons than ever before.  I guess you could call it a “gut feeling” that things were going exactly as we anticipated. Honesty, we were getting busier by the day, and feeling good about the progress we were making. 

Then one day an opportunity presented itself that left us saying, “Dang, we need hard evidence!”  Our library was selected to be the site of a district wide administrator meeting and we were given the opportunity to share about the transformation of our library.  We both knew that there was no way we could stand in front of this group and say that our gut tells us it’s working.  That would be nothing short of awkward.  Thankfully, for our monthly library reports we track current data and have access to our historical data as well (whew). 

With fingers crossed and holding our breath, we started digging into the data.  What data would provide tangible evidence that we really are having an impact?  We landed on three data points that would back up the things we were observing in our library – circulation statistics, student walk-ins (these are students who come in each day without their whole class), and the number of lessons we were teaching.  To be sure we were comparing apples to apples, we looked at the 1st semester data from last year compared to 1st semester data this year.  After double (maybe triple) checking our numbers, we breathed a huge sigh of relief that all of our data backed up what our gut was telling us. 
           

In the end, we recognize that the world we live in is highly data driven.  Although we are celebrating the positive data trends, I truly believe that observing and following your gut is still really powerful.  Look around, get to know your students and teachers, tailor your library to meet the needs of your population, and always continue to monitor and adapt; when you do, the data will become another tool in your toolbox!