In many countries public libraries have a long tradition of working in partnership with governments, philanthropic foundations and the public sector to serve communities. However, libraries that only produce quantitative evidence of their success at the level of activities (for example, numbers of service users, numbers of people trained, resources accessed) and not qualitative evidence of impact (positive perceptions of service users; stories about how lives have changed) are less able to generate support to sustain their services. 

The EIFL Public Library Innovation Project (EIFL-PLIP) impact assessment model, tested in pilot projects, captures outcomes and impact of projects at the end of one year. The majority of libraries using the impact assessment model succeeded in securing support to maintain and expand their services.

Paper presented at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress 2013 in Singapore.  Click the button on the left to read the paper; click here to read the PowerPoint presentation.