0:02
Hello everyone and welcome to today's webinar hosted by Infopeople. This webinar is sponsored by the California State Library as part of the 2019 2020 metrics Grant and our topic today is data for decision-making and to get us started. I'm going to turn it over to one of our presenters Mark think County librarian and chief archivist at Yolo County Library.
0:29
All right. Thank you. So I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who's listening in on this webinar Lisa and I are really excited to be here. And I know that times are a little strange right now.
0:44
So we just really appreciate the fact that you've taken a little bit of time out of your day to spend with us to learn a little bit more about data for decision making And my name is Mark tank and I'm the director for Yolo County library and every presenting with with Lisa.
1:11
Hi everyone. I'm Lisa tail collection services manager for the Sacramento Public Library and I like to start today by acknowledging that we've been taught for some time. Now that data is important. But what I've been hearing from colleagues is that many of us are not incorporating data into our work the way we want to or to the extent.
1:27
We think we should so that's why we're here today Mark and I want to share what we have learned from our experiences and working with data and as finding it in using data effectively as a very broad topic what we're To do today is introduce you to the subject and share just a few of the tools that are available to you as we start the webinar. We'd love to know how you would rate your comfort level with using data in your decision-making. So if you could take a moment to complete the poll and rate how you think you're doing?
2:27
Is this a topic you are great at?
2:32
Just waiting to see results average. Okay, great. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. We really appreciate it.
2:42
next slide So at this point, we just want to set up kind of somebody the main Concepts that we'll be covering in this hour. So we want to to learn about becoming a data-informed organization. We hope that you'll be able to identify new internal and external data sources and that you'll become inspired to use data stories to inform your decisions about library programs collections services and operations.
3:18
So one of the things that we really want to emphasize here first is as Lisa mentioned there's a lot of different data sources out there and you know, a lot of people may find using data very intimidating or overwhelming even the start with so what we're really trying to just you know, talk about with our first basic message. Is that data matters? What we'd like you to think about now is how do you use data and decisions that you're making that affect different?
3:46
Aunt aspects of your library operations what types of questions are your assets. Are you asking yourself now that data could help answer. You just want to think about that for a moment.
4:01
So the good news is that you can use data for any of these reasons really data is just here to help and using data is a great way to get a better understanding or A New Perspective on a challenge that you're working on solving.
4:16
So one of the things that we'd like to mention as it relates to data culture, so really there are two types of data culture. The first is being data-informed a data-informed organization means that an organization uses data and it's context as just one element in the conversation about a decision making process. It's one more point of view. It's one more measurement a data-driven organization is one that sold.
4:46
Looks at data to find out what to do or how to approach something. So at least and I are emphasizing for this particular webinar that we encourage you to be a data-informed organization. So you use data as just one of the different pieces of information as you move ahead with with making decisions.
5:10
And to kind of bring that point home, hom a coat in Forbes Magazine wrote Don't let data completely overrule your human instincts and experience. Go ahead use data extensively to inform your strategic decision-making. Just don't let it completely drive your decisions. That's really the main point that we want to make here about being a data-informed culture instead of a data-driven culture.
5:37
So also we think that data matters for all kinds of different reasons when it comes to library operations data makes a difference when you're planning or evaluating Services programs Outreach Collections, and your budgets data can help you set goals and prioritize data can really help you share results with when you're communicating with stakeholders. It's also a great tool.
6:06
Or advocating for marketing or programs or services? And of course you'll need data whenever you're seeking Grant funds or reporting out on Grant funds.
6:18
So great at this at this point Lisa is going to talk now about what's available.
6:25
Awesome. Thanks Mark. Next slides. Go ahead.
6:31
As you look to use data to inform your decisions. It's important to know the full scope of data that's available to you. So during this webinar, we're going to talk about internal and external sources. We are defining internal as those available within your own Library systems vendor platforms and capture our collection methods and we're defining external as everything else data available from other agencies and organizations that you find on the web including open data portals and you want to consider all data.
7:00
Is available to you when you are faced with a decision. I also wanted to note for those libraries who are not using an analytics vendor or platform that it's okay.
7:08
You can still find and use meaningful data sets to get to know your community and inform your decision making So when you're working with data, one of the one of the basic ways that you can start this process and really feel like you can have data be a little bit more manageable is to really understand it inventory that data sources that are available to you. And this is really specific to internal sources so you can start a spreadsheet and you know have columns that represent these different columns that represent these different pieces of information. What is the data?
7:46
Ours, how did the data source support the library's Mission or purpose who's responsible for collecting the data? How often is it collected once it's collected. Where is it stored who has access to this information and how often is the data shared? So these are great questions to ask so that you can kind of decide how you want to use data who's collecting it and then who you're sharing this information with?
8:16
So we're going to focus now on three examples regarding internal data tools.
8:22
No when you just are in your library and you're kind of looking around at the data sources that are available to you. These are just some that are immediately accessible depending on the tools that you have available in your library. You can collect data from your integrated library system. If you have an automated Materials Handling system, there's also some great data that you can collect their if you use an e-book platform like overdrive, awwe, Early Learning stations.
8:51
People counters, you know tracking traffic that goes through your branches computer used and Wi-Fi use in your branches tracking incident report and program statistics.
9:05
So the first example that I want to talk about is aw e-learning they have a customer portal. If you log in online, this is this is what you'll see ew e learning to talk a little bit more specifically, awwe offers Early Learning stations, and they have a customer portal and the customer portal will track a lot of different statistics including the most popular.
9:34
Options that are on the machine daily weekly monthly session report. You can also look at used by individual station or by Branch or system-wide and you can get a sense of the total amount of time spent on each session and then you can compare your libraries use of the AWA Early Learning stations with other libraries in your state and also in the United States.
10:03
So this is just one report or one screenshot a report that we ran when we were doing some tracking for the use of our awwe early learning stations in Yolo County.
10:16
So this particular report shows us that the most popular application that was used in our library was La Casa de Dora and that the average time spent per session was 14 minutes and if If you look at the amount of views from this application versus the ones below it you can see that this one is extremely popular at the far end. You can also see in minutes the total number of minutes that people logged onto awwe stations in California and spent on this particular application and then the far column you can get the same statistics Nationwide.
10:57
So just take a minute and based on this example. Think about how you could use this data in your library.
11:11
So we're going to be referring to what we're calling data stories and kind of drilling down on some of the specific specific examples that we're providing in this webinar. So here with the with the data story. You can use a we Early laning Learning Station data to understand.
11:31
We're stations are used most. Do you need to be thinking about redeploying stations to other branches where use this high? Do you need to take a station that's being underused and maybe move it to another location in the branch. Those are some things that you can think about based on the data that you can get from the customer portal. What applications are most popular are your print materials mirroring these patterns that you're seeing?
12:00
NG with the awwe Early Learning Station are there some Trends here that you can look at when it comes to purchasing print materials and then how long an average session lasts? So if you're seeing that, you know, the particular length of session is creating lines for children that want to login on a VW e station just understanding that the typical length of the average session can give you an idea about how to kind of stagger the use of session.
12:29
So if you A 30-minute sessions or you might find that that might vary from Branch to Branch depending on the use but this is another piece of information that you can use to make that decision.
12:42
So the second example that we want to share with you about internal sources includes the use of your ebook platform for this specific example, we're going to be referring to overdrive. So with overdrive there are a wealth of reporting features with an overdrive. I just want to highlight a few of them. So you get a sense of what's available to you.
13:06
And then really you can make your own decisions about which reports you think will be most valuable for for Your library and also the questions that you want to have answered with the data data informed Labs. So there's an insights tab. There's a Trends tab. There's a goal section and there's also a report section. So popular reports include check out for it holds purchase orders and title status and usage.
13:37
So this is a screenshot for the overdrive Marketplace insights reporting page that yellow county has used and just looking through the columns that are here on the far left of the screen. You can see where the popular reports are for checkout for it holds also you can look at title activity reports. And then if you move over to the right side of the screen, you can see that for the library system.
14:06
Our 4051 unique users. There's 17900 8 items that are currently checked out and there are eleven thousand two hundred thirty three holes and then right below that you can even see what the format's are for the items in the collection. So for e-books you have you know, 11,500 items that are currently checked out and then audiobooks. It's 6300 and you can also see the hold for this particular collection.
14:36
It's as well. So again, this is just kind of the first page in the overdrive Marketplace when it comes to reporting and there's just a ton of different resources that you can use here. So for Yolo County Library some of the things that we've learned by using this particular data is what percentage of total Collection comes from our ebook and audiobook Collections and for us this can be something that informs budget adjustments.
15:04
We can also find out who borrows The drive items and Forest for us this may influence how we adjust purchasing decisions. For example, based on the age of users or based on materials that we have another languages. We can look at those kinds of Trends also for overdrive we can see where our patrons live and it also gives us an opportunity to decide if you want to Market specific collection to a specific community and we can go to those folks.
15:36
Folks and Survey them and see what else they would like us to add to our collection. So those are just some of the things that we can look at with this data.
15:50
Are the last example for an internal data source that we're referencing are the use of people counters yellow county is installed these in our libraries and they've been a really great tool to help us figure out some of the decisions that we need to make about Staffing or branches and Lisa's going to talk more about people counters.
16:11
Thanks Mark, and I know probably some of you are thinking right now, like really you're going to include people counters in this webinar when our libraries are closed and the answer is yes Mark and I really wanted to keep this slide in because even though it's difficult to get an exact traffic count, especially right now people counters provide one metric to gauge Library use and this count is important as it typically is on the radar of your elected officials and other stakeholders. It's also counted in the public library survey and it provides data for analysis of Library visits and staff and service needs.
16:44
So most of us don't have people in our buildings right now to count but Wanted to make sure you didn't forget to count those folks. You may still be serving outside your walls via virtual programming curbside service mobile Wi-Fi centers and and places like that for a specific example for Sacramento. We have 28 branches and the example on the slide.
17:09
I think Mark there we go from two of our branches show the discrepancies that Can occur in Branch visit counts depending on location so our Elk Grove Library, it's a super popular After School site. So you see that three o'clock hour is very busy and it's important for us to staff up. We're at McClatchy Library the busiest time as a 10 o'clock hour and you can notice that McClatchy to Saturday counts on this is a bit unusual for a system here. Saturday is one of the most popular days. So as we move to the next slide and talk about the data story.
17:48
What's the data story behind people counters? This count isn't a new account for many of us. We've been collecting these counts for years, but it still can be used to Benchmark your library use over time. It can show how your library is used Beyond circulation and it can help make some meaningful decisions when you were addressing Branch staffing needs potentially adjusting Library hours and even scheduling programs and events. And in this time of covid-19 Library visit counts may also be used to inform on-site services to the public when we eventually do Rio.
18:18
Open to other capture methods are evaluations and surveys and these evaluations and surveys they provide an excellent opportunity to inform future decisions about your programs and services.
18:34
We really can't dive too deep here because implementing effective evaluations and even input implementing effective surveys there really two separate courses into themselves, but it's important to remember that much data you For decision making is Created from within our organizations using evaluations and surveys and marks going to share a couple examples with you from Yolo County.
19:00
So one of the things to really think about when you're designing a survey is what do you want to know? Another thing is can you find out this information from other sources? So if you can you really don't want to focus by adding extra questions that are going to take extra time for people to answer if you have other sources where you can get the same information. Also, it's really important to remember who your target audience is and keep your survey short.
19:27
So you want to you want to be really intentional What the number of questions that you ask also based on your target audience? What languages are you going to offer? And what format is the survey going to be in are you going to do it in print or online or both? And then also you want to think about the frequency with which you want to survey? So these are just some questions that kind of keep in mind when you're when you are designing surveys for your library.
19:53
So in Yolo County Library, we've done a lot of work with surveying for are different library programs and we've developed for different surveys and the Really targeted to specific audiences. I just wanted to share a couple results with you from our surveys that we've done for adult programs. So here the first question why people attend library programs one of the things that we learned was that 85% of the people that attended these programs based.
20:23
On 791 adults surveyed was that they learn something new. So for us to know that offering programs were there's some element of learning that resonates really well with with adults that attend our library programs. Also, we wanted to know how people felt about the library. So on the same survey.
20:44
We also asked whether or not people thought that the library providing good value for the toxic tax dollars invested and 80% sent strongly agreed. This is a really powerful statistic that we can share with our stakeholders and with our elected officials about the return on investment for Library dollars.
21:06
And finally where people learned about library programs by asking this question, it gives us an opportunity to really Target specific modalities for creating awareness about the programs that we're offering. So this this gives us a really good snapshot of that.
21:25
So another example of crack capturing data and just the importance of data not just to collect it. But also to use it to kind of monitor what's going on with different programs that you're running at your branch. So for Yolo County we entered into a fine forgiveness program for minors in January 2019. So we stopped charging late fees for minors and we waive their existing debt.
21:54
So Under 18 add library cards with complete access to all of our resources. So one of the things that we did, but before we implemented that was take a snapshot in time in December 2018 to kind of get a sense of where we were with our with all of our library accounts for minors. So 16% of those accounts were blocked because the fines and fees over $10.
22:22
So a year later after we implemented this new find forgiveness policy and January 2020. We took another snapshot and saw that currently about four and a half percent of all accounts were blocked because the fines and fees over $10. So even though there was a slight increase from over the course of the year in that metric. We still see that we have a lot more youth who have access to our Library resources then in the year prior. We also saw.
22:52
The circulation of young adult and juvenile material increased 20% 24 percent over that year again. We can take this information back to the Board of Supervisors and share them with it share that information with them and it just gives them some evidence that supports their initial decision to approve this particular policy.
23:16
I would also say that with data it could also go the other way we could have learned that maybe the number of counts that were blocked would go up to 30% and that maybe circulation of those materials decreased by 24% I think that knowing that data is just as valid not just to prove your successes, but it gives you an opportunity to really understand challenges that you're facing but part of it is, you know using Data Tracking it over time and then doing an analysis of the results those pieces of this process are just as important so that you And kind of where you are with your with the progress that you're trying to make on a particular goal.
24:00
So I'm now going to turn it back over to Lisa who's going to talk about external data tools. Awesome. Thanks Mark. So some of the internal data tools may not be easily accessible to you. Especially if the login information May reside with another department like it or if like in Sacramento to get it all of our ILS data where a Sierra system you really need in-depth SQL knowledge, but that's what I love the external data tools because they're open and accessible.
24:30
Hi everyone, if you know where to find them. So we're going to take off this section with another Pool and have you rate your skill in finding external data sources. So what do you think? Are you an expert? Can you be teaching this course right now or this webinar? Do you have strong skills? So you're comfortable with finding sources. Are you just good? You have some skill, but you still feel like you have a lot to learn or are you not there yet?
24:59
You've Tried that you haven't gotten for far or do you want us to stop talking about data be honest with us. We know some of you are here because you're stuck at home and there's nothing else to do. So if you could take a minute and let us know kind of where where you feel your skills are in this area.
25:27
Good good and not quite there yet. So closely resembling the pool at the beginning of the webinar. Thanks everyone for your honesty. And even the person who said stop talking. I appreciate that. All right. So when we talk about external tools, we are talking about some that we know very well, right. I think one of the best-known external data sites is the American Community survey at least for libraries and open data portals. They're available from national state and local levels.
25:57
They just continue to expand our at least the data that's included on them continue to expand an example of a National Data Center is kids count dot-org. Some of the data sets from kids count are dated, but it's still a useful site for service area comparisons and for obtaining supporting data for Grant applications. Another National Data Center is City-Data.com. It has a community data.
26:23
It has Community data and then rankings down to ticular neighborhoods pertaining to topics such as diversity or crime data, and I've used this type of information to determine where to hold a program or even to wear to support a, you know, a grant or even to support a Grant application. Your community should have some local sites as well. And we're going to look at a couple of examples of community data later in the webinar. But if you're working from home right now, you have a great opportunity to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the external resources that are available to you.
26:58
And there's a number of ways that you can use external forces. They help you better get to know your community because this is where your demographic information is. They can help you find and better serve your marginalized populations and you know information provided in these external sites can really resonate more with your elected officials and other decision makers because they're providing the data that directly relates to their communities the sites also help us find service gaps.
27:26
And ways to make more meaningful impact to our community. They also enable you to Benchmark with other libraries through the public library survey data to obtain needs of students and other specific populations and to better inform grants and initiatives.
27:43
but finding a capturing external data can be very different than your work with internal sources and just be prepared for that I found that external sources widely widely vary and ease of use and when you find the data again you're finding a lot of these just directly from the internet so you need to make sure we're of who you're aware of who published the data is there a potential for bias and what they're presenting you want to know how timely it is is it to data to be relevant aunt and is it relevant to your need because are you just trying to grab a data set to support your work even though it really doesn't pertain to what you're trying to represent and one of my frustrations when I'm exploring open data sites is that I don't always have the software needed to open the files but don't let that discourage you the one thing that I neglected to mention on this slide is that external data is not only not the easiest to use but Isn't the easiest to find sometimes beyond the government data portals be willing to explore and really pay attention to sites that are referenced on other sites or in your research. I've stumbled across some sites and I'm researching for a grant application or for project and I recommend bookmarking useful site. So they are easily retrieved later. Unfortunately, I've learned the hard way on this one where I found what I thought was really good side and then I have a hard time going back to it as we move into examples the food.
29:12
First external data sample is one that you may know really well, but I still wanted to highlight it today. There's been a couple good webinars lately for using the California Public Library survey data, and if you want to compare National data sets, you can do that directly from The Institute of Museum and Library Services the complete National Data set for the public library survey is downloadable into a CSV file, but it's also still available from supplementary tables. I have no less also has this newer it's a library search.
29:42
Exploration tool and I haven't spent a lot of time with it yet, but I think there's a lot of potential here and it has some interesting snapshot data for each Library System. I encourage you to check it out. If you haven't seen it as noted on the slide this information is not super timely because of the time it takes to gather and bet the data prior to publishing but it still can be useful.
30:06
So what's the data story behind the public library survey? I have used PLS data and the comparisons it provides for years to Benchmark my library system to justify budget request as recently as last year actually and even to inform a future of the sylheti plan. Also if you work for a jurisdiction that cares how it Stacks up to others the public library survey is a great tool for you to use the second example.
30:34
I wanted to show you A site that is used quite a bit at our library service to use is a huge priority for us and through the Department of Education. You can obtain student data that includes languages spoken in the home poverty rates Foster student enrollment graduation and college going rates and just a whole bunch more.
30:55
The department of education's data plus portal to get at this data is amazing. There's a myriad of information here pertaining to school and student data and unlike some open data portals. This one is super easy to use. So you very first select your level of data source, and you're going to be doing that from your state your county your District or specific school and they include charter schools.
31:23
You're then going to select your subject.
31:26
And the text on the screen here is rather small but there's everything here from enrollment data to test results to expulsion rates to Healthy Kids survey results, and then you're going to hit submit and some files that your you'll retrieve are just text file, but others are going to provide you a really nice spreadsheet and the data here is usually timely to with many set a data sets going back for years if you wanted to do any comparison.
31:54
I'm going to quickly show you a couple datasets from the Department of Education that are available. The first is English Learners by grade and language. 
32:11
Can we advance the slide?
32:14
Awesome. Thank you. The available text on the bottom here includes County School District and counts of languages spoken per grade. What's up on the slide right now is a student poverty data. This is the free and reduced-price meals. The student poverty data is again pertaining to free and reduced-price meals and it downloads into a very user-friendly spreadsheet that includes eligibility numbers enrollment free meal counts and percentage of eligible students.
32:45
so it's we moved to oh the How you use the school data in your library take a moment to think about it. And if you're already familiar with the school data think about how you could use it maybe in different ways or when was the last time you went on and really explored? What was it what's available to you?
33:05
So we're going to move on to the data story that's behind the school data and there's a number of ways of using this first it's going to tell you where your English Learners are Sacramento. We just use this data last year to help inform a world language assessment and subsequent relocation and refresh of our world language collections.
33:23
The data has also informed were bilingual Librarians and bilingual programming are needed what schools in your service area have the highest free and reduced-price meals Our Youth Services team has you That percentage eligible to I eligible to identify students for our annual book first school visit and book giveaway. That's funded by the friends of the library.
33:45
It also tells you what other service opportunities exist and maybe from what locations so where could you offer targeted programs to population such as Foster Youth and the data found here is really hopeful to informing your Grant applications and programs to As we move on to the next example, I did want to take a moment to encourage you to explore your local data and whatever local data is available to you. And the next slide is going to show you an example one example from Sacramento the be healthy Sacramento fight. It's one example of the types of community data that I'm referring to a lot of the data on this site is aggregated from other sites. I'm sure but this is a great place to start if you're say applying for working on Health and Wellness.
34:32
Grant or you're working on it like a healthy initiative. There's a number of useful data sets here. The Sacramento Coalition for digital inclusion is another example of community data site. This project just happens to be spearheaded by the library, but includes key community members from all over Sacramento and included on the site is a parameter report of the steering committee, and there's also the link there to a digital inclusion map of Sacramento County.
35:02
We based on census data. So it's already built right there for us.
35:07
As we move on to the next example, we thought we would be remiss if we didn't include any covid-19 data related sites today. So on April 23rd, the Census Bureau released an interactive covid-19 data Hub. And the photos on this slide are taken from a Sacramento County dashboard that's available on that site. You may not use this data in your decision-making but it can provide an overarching view of how your service area is doing with.
35:37
I'm pertaining to topics such as poverty level and at-risk population numbers.
35:42
There's also local sites as well. So this covid-19 example from Sacramento county is an example of what's available to you locally both Sacramento and YOLO counties, and I'm sure most if not all your communities have fairly robust covid-19 dashboards that provide guidance pertaining to stay at home orders and essential services.
36:03
And this example in the screen shows data a library system like Sacramento could use as we work on reopening plans so all but one of the Cities listed there are Our service area in as we can see areas of our County here that may be hot spots or others with little infection for Sacramento. It looks like it's pretty standard across the board. But every Community is going to differ but this could help us decide what what potential reopen sites which should start first the data doesn't answer all of the questions, but it could be one piece of the puzzle that's covid and on the next slide marks going to share a good lesson learned.
36:42
from the Yolo County site Thanks Lisa. So one of the things that we've done while we've been Sheltering in place and working from home, we've offered a lot of services through our social media platforms and also on our website and with that we had a lot of staff that are interested in kind of developing content that we could push out to folks using those different platforms.
37:08
One of the great lessons learned during this time for us has been you know, what the the county has created some really comprehensive information around covid-19. And they've also provided information in Spanish in Russian and Chinese. So the fact that all of this work is already being done actually means that it saves our staff a lot of time from having to create this research and then updating it constantly. So what we've learned is, you know, we're taking advantage of the fact that the state is available. It's updated probably daily by the county.
37:44
And for us it's much easier to refer residents to the site than instead of assigning Library staff to do research and update this information. So you don't always have to recreate the wheel and it's just good to you know, keep people focused on one particular site when it seems to be the best information available for your specific need.
38:10
One of the things I wanted to include today, it's not an external site, but it's something that has really approved our ability to use data for decision-making in Sacramento. So it's been a key tool for us and that's establishing a really great relationship with our local County GIS Department what they have that we don't they have Staffing Resources to effectively work with higher level data set and having a skill set on staff with capacity to do the work.
38:39
Can be especially difficult for libraries, for example, for example, they have GIS Specialists that do our mapping for us. Like we're building that capacity internally, but right now they can do those higher-level types of mapping that we just don't have the software or the ability to do they also can aggregate data at a more granular level. So for Sacramento again, we have 28 branches, but the Census Data counts, they don't exactly aligned with our Branch service areas.
39:09
Has so it has been very difficult and rather time consuming to map external sets to our Branch service areas and to do this accurately. So we have the county do that for us connections to data. Otherwise unavailable to you last month. We were contacted by Senator pans office because they were are he was exploring ways to serve to get meals in the hands of seniors during this time of covid.
39:38
So we were To provide the number of people over age 65 in each of Our Brands service area and include the numbers of those who are receiving CalFresh assistance. So instead of us trying to col some data together from the senses, which again doesn't really align with our service area. We just reached out to our County GIS team and they were able to obtain some updated information directly from the Department of Human Services with a CalFresh data and they mapped this out for us per each one of our branches.
40:09
Ashes and then while they're at it we have them put together a spreadsheet of a complete set of specific ages age group served per Branch service area that I expect we're going to be able to use in the future it this this second spreadsheet also includes teens and tweens which can be hard counts to get even from analytics vendors. They've also been really helpful with new ideas and advice for example right now.
40:35
They're helping us in establishing the best methods to clean our Less address data so that we can use to map our users better for projects like facility Master planning. So as we move to how can you use I want you to think about how you can use local data in your library. Again. There's just a myriad of resources available to you. So just don't forget that they're all out there and and again available and as we move on to the next side, we we want to talk about the data story behind local sources.
41:09
Has you're going to use local data sources to learn more details about your brand service areas. You're going to learn how to understand your community better whether you're informing a grant project or helping your community through a crisis such as covid-19. And you're also going to know where the best Community Resources are available. We have the library. We don't always need to take the time to create the content. We just need to be able to find it and present it.
41:39
So we're going to move on to beyond the examples. We're going to talk about now. What and as we talk about now what one of the things I thought was really important to include today is how important it is to present your data effectively you are going to be using data to find and form not just your own decisions, but you're also going to be supporting your recommendations to other decision-makers and it's really important.
42:07
To know your audience as you present to your decision makers or to other staff and it takes thought because and at times that even take strategy depending on your desired result remember that not everyone is data Savvy and if you're putting together a report that a super data heavy it could be hard for others to understand. So my recommendation is to present only the data you need to make your case and present it in a way that is digestible by the end users. It's not always what you present, but it's how you present.
42:37
So just don't forget that packaging packaging. Your data sets really do madam.
42:44
So I'm going to turn this over now to more Merc.
42:48
Okay. Thanks Eliza. So in closing some of the points that we presented in this webinar and some of the things that we want to re-emphasize and closing. Hopefully we've given you a little bit of information about the importance about being a data-informed organization and how we essentially it is to use data as just kind of one perspective when you're looking at making decisions regarding to library programs and services. Also, we want you to think about new internal.
43:18
And external data sources that you may use depending on what your need is and really we want you to be inspired to use data to inform your decisions. And we really do mean we want you to be inspired. We want you to remember the importance of knowing who your target audience is and how you tailor your message accordingly. Obviously the questions that you're going to ask and how you're going to report out on the information that you've collected will vary depending on who your audience.
43:48
Lance is And really think we think that being data-informed can be easy peasy. So Lisa and I both have both kind of come to this webinar with different experiences and kind of different perspectives. So what we've tried to do is give you two different perspectives on how to different Library systems are using data and using data to really inform some deceptive some of their decisions.
44:20
So what we'd really like to do now is have you think about what you are inspired to do now that you've seen some examples of internal and external data sources and how they can influence decisions that your library makes.
44:40
And I'm just holding on the slide for a second. So you can if you have any notes you want to jot down anything that comes to mind something that you want to return to now the great now is a great time to do that.
44:52
And then with that I'm going to turn it back over to Lisa.
44:56
Thanks, Mark. So for further information, there's just so much out there week-old just a few things for the webinar today and a couple highlights from what's on the screen is I really encourage you to check out the California Public Library statistics web page, I think and and check it out. If you haven't done so lately. I think the State library has done a really good job of providing links to public library survey data, and they have a list of courses and webinars for California Public Library staff.
45:26
And they've updated their sit within the last couple of years. And again, I think they've done a really good job. I also wanted to highlight data Jim's this is a list of video clips with tips and tools from census staff on how to find and use Census Data. I'm someone who I never get in and use Census Data super seamless me seamlessly. It takes me a while to kind of navigate around the data. So again, I recommend if you're like me to use data gyms.
45:56
With that we're going to move to the question and answer answer slide. So if you have questions for us, you can put those in the chat box and we are happy to answer any questions. And if you think of a question after today, you have our contact information Mark and I are happy to provide further feedback or answer your questions or maybe obtained some of your great ideas after today.
46:26
Thankfully Cinemark. We've just had one question come in.
46:31
I'm wondering if either of you have any comments about pla as project outcome. 
46:38
Well, I yeah, I can start with that when I was looking I included it on the last slide for the link because it's still available on pla site, but it looks like the transitioning to the impact survey and I'm not using both either one of those right now a lot. So we I really didn't talk about it. But I think pla the outcome survey has its benefits for us.
47:09
In Sacramento, we do use it. In fact last year and into the year before what we did is we scheduled three system-wide project outcome surveys. We took three different months and we aligned with three different priorities. So we did one that align with summer reading we did one that aligned with technology and we did one that aligned with summer reading and we got that data we and I was part of the technology committee and we use the data.
47:38
Data on the technology Community Committee. What we're finding is we don't use it exclusively though. It's easy to use but it's not comprehensive. And if the questions you want to ask your community aren't easily obtainable through particle come it's harder to use. So again, we're doing an evaluation project right now, and we added a simple survey to the evaluation we're doing and we did not use project outcome because we thought we could get more usable data.
48:08
If we used a different method, so that's from Sacramento's perspective Mark. Do you have anything else to contribute? So I would just say that if your library has never done surveying before I think project outcome is a fantastic tool to get you started and just kind of get you understanding a few things one to understand how you think about administering a survey how you have Daft actually do that and then take some time to review.
48:38
The results and see what those results mean as far as what you're doing with for example library programs saying it's a really great way to start having data informed conversations. If it's not something that you're currently doing, I would say that for Yellow County, you know, we probably we are surveys are a little bit more in-depth. I mean you wanted to Taylor we wanted to add questions to the surveys that we were administering here in the county. So I think that the basic data that project outcome.
49:08
Is great and you can get a sense of how your library Compares with all the other libraries that are part of project outcome, which I think is very valuable and it's a great starting point. I think for for our library system. It kind of informed a framework for surveying but we took it to the next level and and provided a little bit more comprehensive surveying for the information that we wanted to learn. But I again, I think it's a great tool for folks to start with and to start having data informed conversation.
49:38
ins What do you think the biggest change that your library is implemented as a result of the data?
49:52
Why not the tough I'll you Do you have a answer to that Mark? Well, I will say that we're actually yellow county is Right Yellow County Library System the middle of finishing a strategic plan a new strategic plan. So that strategic plan was really informed by a lot of data collections. So we had a comprehensive staff survey.
50:18
We also did stakeholder interviews and then we did a public survey and we had a we were surprised at the response that Had just the number of people that responded to our survey. So we're in the process now of taking all of that data and that data is really informing the priorities that we will be rolling out as part of a new strategic plan and we just have a really great understanding of our library users and you know how they use the library what they want us to continue offering and what their own priorities are. So we have a really great snapshot in time.
50:56
Time based on the information that we collected. So we're still kind of working through the final project of what that you know, strategic plan will look like but it's really all about the information that we collected. So so we're excited about being able to roll that out. But I would say that for us that's been the biggest that's been the biggest project where where it's really good in Fort.
51:20
Yeah, I think it's similar for Sacramento. We just did a we updated our strategic plan. We didn't replace it. We just wanted to do like a refresh of our strategic plan. And so we took hardwood or Community data that we gather through the hardwood process to help inform that and I'm also thinking something that we're working on right now.
51:43
It's not super big but it's just a new example is actually both yellow and Sacramento are part of Of the embedding evaluation in libraries projects. There's I don't know.
51:55
I think three other Library systems Beyond ours in California working on this and and we've been looking at ways to better like to expand our mobile services and to better expand our like our reach and the services we provide out in the community and we've been working on in the valuation and the evaluation is targeted specifically to what what adding programs and stimulate a program specifically to our mobile sites do but I think right now using data to inform our manager Community engagement manager has somebody who's mapping out maps and who's going to be using mapping and different demographics and some of the results from our valuations to really look at where to send our mobile vehicles and Also as we add vehicle with how we can have the most impact on the communities we serve and in Yolo for that particular project. One of the things that were working on is we have a big push for early literacy. And one of the things that we're trying to do is is figure out how we can use data to demonstrate how the work that we do at the libraries directly contributes to Children reading at grade level both in kindergarten and third grade so we offer story times.
53:20
Link will story times and we have all kinds of collection resources. But what we what we're really working on is developing a way that's data informed that really helps parents understand and caregivers understand that their involvement with these programs with their children at a really young age puts them in a position where they're much more likely to read at grade level by kindergarten and third grade.
53:46
So some of the tools that were looking at now are you know, Beeping some kind of surveys to kind of get information from parents and caregivers about how their behavior has changed over time based on attending story times and based on information that they've received from library staff while they attend so things like that. We're still in the process of developing these tools but the idea is hopefully we'll be able to develop kind of some Pathways that we can offer to parents and caregivers. So, you know, they know what's next in their Library Journey for what's going to help.
54:20
Our children be able to read at grade level. So that's the project that we're currently working on. So it's still a work in progress. But that's kind of where our focus is to use data to validate what we think we already know by anecdotal evidence, but we need we really want to make it evidence-informed.
54:43
Okay, we have a quick comment. And then some more questions. Someone says these tools can give us great info to bring to politicians at all levels when we talk about Library funding and it's good timing because this week is National Library legislative week.
54:58
Awesome, and it's it's we're heading into what could be a tough time for libraries coming up to with everything that's happening. So, I think it's especially important. I'm sorry Mark, but we can say oh, I was just completely agree with that comment. Thank you. Can you speak in more detail about how J is helped you with Gathering the data for people over 65. Was it for your patrons only?
55:24
I'm actually no we wanted service area data. So we did not send any of our Patron records to them. They just pulled it. I think from the latest probably like the census Community survey data, whatever they use at the County. So I just sent a request over there told him what we needed and initially it wasn't going to have them break out every single age group the way the census does. I mean, it's a very specific so you're talking zero.
55:54
The five five eight or whatever those categories look like, but they just pulled it from their data source, but it's in the entire community that each of our branches served not just our specific Patron data.
56:12
And another for the question. If not that person can follow up for sure. Okay. Do either of you have a dedicated analytics team or person in your library system?
56:26
We actually in Sacramento.
56:29
I'm sorry Mark. Go ahead. I'll go ahead and say in Sacramento. We just hired a person in 2019. So they haven't been with us for even a year yet and it's been an onboarding process because we have so many systems learning our iOS and when we brought the person on we took all kind of data reporting and brought it into collection.
56:58
Asses so it's part of the team I work with so it's been pretty extensive onboarding process. But the person it's Kelly Clark he's awesome. And so we're starting to work more and more with the data but being able to work with GIS as just expanded that but we knew we needed someone again. We're pretty large system. I know there's some Library systems bigger than ours that have whole teams and that would be amazing.
57:26
We're really lucky though as we have like a Are you Services Department give those folks a shout out because they are amazing at both capturing and using data to make decisions. So we have one dedicated person and then we have, you know, a small team of people who are skilled and participate.
57:47
And I would say that you know, this is just kind of one of the areas that I'm really interested in and have learned over time the value that being data-informed brings to an organization. So I'm we don't have a dedicated person that's just focused on data analytics. We have brought somebody in to kind of help us with our data analysis for our strategic plan. But a lot of the other kind of data that we're looking at we review it at management meetings.
58:16
We Courage Library staff to kind of you know, if they're creating a survey, you know, we encourage them to kind of monitor monitor the results periodically or quarterly. We also have a lot of Grant programs where there where we need to collect data. So I would say that our staff is you know, they're they're pretty proficient with you know, using data to kind of inform program design and program results.
58:46
It's but we don't have a dedicated person who works on this full-time.
58:53
I just have like two minutes left. So maybe we can squeeze in one more question can either of you speak in more detail about how you get the public and Library users to participate in your surveys.
59:07
You want to take this Mark? I think you've done this very well. So I would say that for our for the surveying that we do for programs. We have the surveys available in both print and online forms. We have the surveys available in multiple languages. We also try and keep the surveys really short for Unique programs. We survey for a unique programs. Those are programs to just happen kind of once and then for our ongoing programs, we survey.
59:37
Quarterly and we use the same survey across all of the children's programs. For example, so over time the number of surveys that we get back. It just really adds up and it gives us a way to kind of compare the results over time. Frankly. We were really surprised at the results with our strategic plan. We promoted the we did the survey available in print and online you offered it in multiple languages.
1:00:07
Ages our biggest response actually came to an email campaign for our library users and by referring the link out to our partner organizations who also shared it with folks that were harder for us to reach who may not have a lot of experience with the library. So those were the primary ways that we promoted our strategic planning survey. Also, we promoted it in our branches as well.
1:00:37
Rainy, but we are at the top of the hour. So if anybody has a question, I think of later or if you didn't get your question answered, I know you were both open to hearing from people afterwards, correct? Absolutely. Yes. Thank you both very much. Thank you Lisa and Mark that was wonderful.
1:00:59
Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, and for our audience everyone who registered and attended today's webinar will receive a follow-up email tomorrow that includes a link to the archive recording of This webinar as well as a link to a certificate of attendance. We also put a link in the chat to a short survey. So if you could please take a few minutes to fill that out and helps us in planning future training. Thank you everyone and we'll see you at our next webinar.
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