1 Why self-evaluation matters

Self-evaluation is an essential process of collecting and analyzing data to measure the impact, quality, and effectiveness of your library services. It allows you to align your services with your mission, vision, and goals, as well as demonstrate your value and accountability to stakeholders. Additionally, self-evaluation can help you identify areas of excellence and areas for improvement, celebrate your achievements, share best practices, inform decision-making and strategic planning. Furthermore, it encourages a culture of continuous learning and innovation in your library by reflecting on practices and seeking feedback from users and partners.

2 How to avoid bias

Self-evaluation can be hindered by bias, which can distort the validity and reliability of data and conclusions. Bias can be caused by selecting data sources or methods that favor desired outcomes, interpreting data to confirm preconceptions, overlooking data that contradicts views, or reporting data in a selective way. To reduce bias, multiple sources and methods of data collection should be used, such as surveys, interviews, observations, and statistics. Additionally, triangulating data from different sources and involving different perspectives and stakeholders in the collection and analysis can help verify and validate findings. Lastly, it is important to be transparent about data sources, methods, limitations, and assumptions.

3 How to get external validation

Self-evaluation can be challenging due to the lack of external validation, which can affect the credibility and usefulness of your results. External validation is the process of verifying and confirming your self-evaluation findings by an independent and objective third party. This process can help to enhance your confidence in the results, identify any gaps or errors in your data collection and analysis, receive constructive feedback and recommendations for improvement, benchmark your performance against standards or best practices, and share your results with others. To get external validation, you should seek opportunities for peer review, participate in external audits or evaluations, or engage in professional development. This could include exchanging and discussing your self-evaluation results with other library professionals who have similar experience or expertise, submitting your self-evaluation results to a formal or informal assessment by an external organization or agency, or attending workshops, conferences, webinars, or other events where you can learn from and network with other library professionals.

4 How to solicit feedback

A final challenge of self-evaluation is the limited feedback, which can affect the learning and improvement of your library services. Feedback is the process of receiving and giving information or opinions on your self-evaluation results and actions. It can help you to understand the needs, expectations, and satisfaction of your users and partners; recognize the strengths and weaknesses of your services and staff; identify the opportunities and threats in your environment; develop and implement action plans for improvement; and monitor and evaluate your progress and outcomes. To solicit feedback, you should design and distribute feedback surveys, conduct feedback interviews or focus groups, as well as create feedback channels such as email, phone, social media, website, etc. for your users and partners to communicate with you and provide feedback on your services and self-evaluation results.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?