Presentation given to Branching Out librarians and Board members
by Briony Train, September 2000
This evaluation of Year Two of Branching Out looks in particular at three areas:
- the Branching Out librarians' self-assessment
- examples of Year Two projects; and
- the impact of Branching Out in library authorities
However, we start with a brief look at the initial year, to put the role of UCE into the context of Branching Out as a whole.
The themes that have emerged again and again in all the different forms of data collected are:
- advocacy
- networking
- cascading
- cultural changes
During the first year our evaluation was concentrated in three areas:
At the end of the first year, Rachel devised a self-evaluation questionnaire which I analysed and wrote up, and this revealed that for all Branching Outers the impact of the project had been considerable. Here are a couple of relevant sentences:
'A number of changes have been achieved in all authorities, but areas in which attitudinal changes are particularly notable are those of stock selection and reader development.'
'Branching Out had clearly had a significant impact on stock selection processes which had been completely revised in many cases.'
It would also be useful to note that the Branching Outers felt that they had increased their competence in:
- keeping up to date with current fiction and poetry
- influencing their authority's selection process to buy a wider range of these materials
- integrating reader development into the authority's planning and everyday work
- knowledge of literature networks
In the second year of the project, the number of core training days was reduced by half, in order to give participants the opportunity to work in smaller project development groups. And although the time commitment was still great, this new working style has meant that there has been more flexibility in planning meetings and work timetables.
Learning Review 2: Agents of change
The second learning review, completed in January 2000, perhaps unsurprisingly revealed the Branching Outers to be generally far more satisfied with the project. It focused on the ambitious original aim of the project which requires participants to act as 'agents of change' within their authorities and in the wider library community.
The questionnaire was divided into four areas, which looked at:
- Personal changes
- Changes in colleagues' attitudes
- Changes in users' attitudes, and
- Future changes
Summary of findings of Learning Review 2
A major part of their work in this second year has been carried out in smaller project-based groups. We chose to evaluate two of these projects, Open Ticket and unclassified:
Open ticket: world literature promotion
This is the high-profile world literature promotion developed by a group of six Branching Out librarians in commercial partnership with Book Communications Ltd, and was the first of the year two projects to be launched.
Our evaluation of the project was extremely detailed, taking into account the impact it had on the many parties involved. These are the different elements we included:
Observation:
- of project planning meetings
- of training programme development meetings
- of the training sessions themselves
Obtaining feedback:
- from Branching Out trainers: before and after delivering training
- from trainees
- from Opening the Book management
- from senior management
- from project partners, including future plans
Key Open Ticket research findings
unclassified: developing new audiences for contemporary fiction
'The unclassified section is completely wicked! Seriously global, massively diverse, utterly mighty!'
'At last, something other than Catherine Cookson and family sagas. The layout always looks great!'
' always my first stop on the hunt for more books.'
That was just a sample of the type of comments coming in from readers experiencing the unclassified way of promoting contemporary fiction, a way which brings new books out of the A-Z or genre categories and makes them both accessible and attractive to browsers, who, we all know, make up the majority of library users.
Key unclassified research findings
Views of Branching Out Commercial Partners
I have covered in some detail the two projects we are closely evaluating, but in order to collect a balanced view of all elements of Branching Out, I have also been in contact with the commercial partners involved in the four remaining year two projects.
Comments from commercial partners
Learning Review Three: project-based work
The third and most recent learning review was completed in August 2000, and focused on the project-based work of the second year of Branching Out, during which participants worked in one or more of the following groups:
Project
Partner
Open Ticket
Book Communications
Forager
Applied Psychology Research
A Touch Of...
National Library for the Blind
Book of the Month
HarperCollins
Loud and Proud
Books for Students
unclassified
Opening the Book
The aim of the third review was to enable Branching Outers to reflect on their experience of this project work, in the following areas in particular:
- Participation in project groups
- Experience of group work
- Skills development
- Additional projects
- Feedback and cascading
The findings for each of the three learning reviews have been fascinating: participating in Branching Out is having a major impact on each of the librarians. Yes, the workload is demanding and the timescales are often difficult to manage, but the benefits have been - and continue to be - considerable. I'll just quote for you one member of the group who summarised these benefits far better than I could:
'The personal and professional benefits that I have gained through my work on Branching Out have come as a pleasant and great surprise. Professionally it has enhanced my standing within and outside the borough as an authority on contemporary literature On a personal level, I have moved from reading a limited range of literature to a much wider one and continue to enjoy the experience.'
Summary of findings of Learning Review 2
Branching Out Heads of Service
But do the heads of service agree with the Branching Outers? Our evaluation in Year 1 focused on the Branching Outers themselves, on the effect that the first year had had on them. But in the second year, as I've hopefully illustrated already, we have looked to evaluate the wider impact of the project, on colleagues, partners and senior managers. The activity that has undoubtedly generated the most interest is the interviews I conducted with heads of service. These took place in July 2000 with many of those responsible for the management of the 33 authorities, in order to determine their perception of the impact to date of Branching Out.
Results of interviews with Branching Out heads of service:
Advocacy: promoting reader development to colleagues
Articles have been submitted to the LA Record and the Public Library Journal about Branching Out, the first about the impact of the initiative on the Branching Outers themselves, and the second looking at the wider impact on the library authorities. These will both be published in the next couple of months. In addition, a third article will be published in the Journal of Library and Information Science - or JOLIS - next year, looking at the methodology behind our evaluation, in particular the learning reviews.
Bibliographic details of Branching Out articles
To disseminate Branching Out as widely as possible, we are keen to include articles in academic, refereed journals, but in order to reach the practitioners, it's obviously essential that we publish in journals such as PLJ and the LA Record. During the third year, we'll continue to evaluate the growing impact of all aspects of Branching Out on all parties involved, using further learning reviews, interviews, questionnaires and observation.
Evaluation to be conducted at the end of Year 3
After three years, all data will be analysed and a final report produced which covers all aspects of our evaluation.
Hopefully, as we move into the third year of Branching Out, we can all see just how far we've come! For many authorities, reader development is now a mainstream activity, and heads of service accredit this to the innovative work of their Branching Out representative. Their work is also being cascaded with great enthusiasm, and concrete plans are being made to dramatically increase this dissemination in the coming months.
The impact of Branching Out is great, and it is difficult to imagine that it's momentum will not be sustained.
