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Abstract: From Research Question to Decision Tool: Supporting Local Choices
The Libraries in Community Systems project has developed a set of tools to improve public library practitioners’ ability to make outcomes-based decisions across a variety of social wellbeing dimensions like educational effectiveness, economic wellbeing, and health access and outcomes. Each was (and is) made through an iterative process between researcher, public library partners, and the wider field. Not only are they the result of multiple perspectives, they are also built on the synthesis of mixed methods research, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative results.
This poster will be 44” wide and 48” tall, and display the three primary decision support tools available:
- Service decisions for Wellbeing Impacts Calculator
- Data Dashboard with Policy and Service Considerations
- Partnership Network Mapping Tool
And how these tools flow from our rigorously identified key findings:
- Public libraries have a Co-Production Function (requiring mediation analysis to more accurately estimate impacts)
- Public libraries are not, generally, THE hub, but rather a node within a community’s interrelated networks, with many other nodes (requiring networked understanding to uncover assets to leverage as well as underserved groups)
- Library workers are ideal research partners who grow their local capacity for dialog, critical inquiry, and collective decision making, when supported in developing local research projects.
Visitors to the poster will have the opportunity to visit each of the tools in the static display by the time of the conference. The primary author of the tool translations will be the presenter and able to walk through any details of design or construction. This will give the author and visitors an opportunity to discuss novel approaches to library research, from game-based elicitation strategies to rarely used, but increasingly popular in other social sciences, quantitative models for causal inference. Expect a robust discussion of designing research for active use by target communities.
This poster will be 44” wide and 48” tall, and display the three primary decision support tools available:
- Service decisions for Wellbeing Impacts Calculator
- Data Dashboard with Policy and Service Considerations
- Partnership Network Mapping Tool
And how these tools flow from our rigorously identified key findings:
- Public libraries have a Co-Production Function (requiring mediation analysis to more accurately estimate impacts)
- Public libraries are not, generally, THE hub, but rather a node within a community’s interrelated networks, with many other nodes (requiring networked understanding to uncover assets to leverage as well as underserved groups)
- Library workers are ideal research partners who grow their local capacity for dialog, critical inquiry, and collective decision making, when supported in developing local research projects.
Visitors to the poster will have the opportunity to visit each of the tools in the static display by the time of the conference. The primary author of the tool translations will be the presenter and able to walk through any details of design or construction. This will give the author and visitors an opportunity to discuss novel approaches to library research, from game-based elicitation strategies to rarely used, but increasingly popular in other social sciences, quantitative models for causal inference. Expect a robust discussion of designing research for active use by target communities.