Data/Evaluation/Annual Report

Libraries face critical challenges in the 21st century. Over the last two decades, the rapid pace of technological and societal change has caused many people to question the relevance of and need for libraries. How can libraries address this perception?

Libraries must continue to assess the needs of their communities and develop services and programs to meet those needs. However, now more than ever, libraries need to tell compelling stories and back those stories up with solid facts and data. Libraries must make a major cultural shift and become more purposeful in gathering, analyzing and using data for decision making, strategic planning and to prove library impact. This page offers resources and tips to help libraries make that shift.

• Maine Reports and Data Sets - Public library annual reports, Maine demographics, education, health and workforce development information
• National Reports and Data Sets - National census, workforce development and education data as well as links to the Pew Research Center, IMLS and other library research organizations
• Tools and Methodologies - Project Outcome and more about outcome based evaluation and other national assessment tools
• Training - archived webinars about using data to tell the library's story
• Data in Action Toolkit- ideas for using specific data for making library management decisions
• Infographics- These items are created in Word for you to add your numbers, other information or pictures. They are also available in LibPass under the Reports tab in the Pamphlet folder. These will automatically pull your data from your most recent annual report. You can also edit these.
  • General Library Bookmark [Word, 47KB]
  • Flyer [Word, 203KB]
  • Poster [Word, 25KB]
  • Year in Reviw [Word, 2,546KB]
  • Dashboards
    • International City/County Managers Assocation Library Benchmarks [Word, 36KB]
    • From Awareness to Funding [Word, 36KB]
    • Economic Indicators [Word, 641KB]