PLAN - WHAT DID YOU SET OUT TO DO? | |
| Summary/ Description of Activity | |
| Devon Libraries coordinated a regional survey aimed at assessing the informal learning gathered by readers of borrowed library books. This involved six library authorities and over 50 libraries and their users. The total number of completed returns totalled over 5,500. It is an unspoken truth that library users learn from borrowed library books but virtually no work had previously been done to assess this. For the purposes of Grundvig, therefore, the project provided both evidence of the informal learning inherent in reading and also a useful evaluation technique in its own right. The survey was carried out by readers returning library books with completed forms self-assessing what they learnt from them. The survey form didn’t ask for personal details such as age so it is impossible to track the age profile or other information. However, it can be extrapolated that in such a large sample seniors would have filled in a representative return and that the informal learning obtained by them from borrowed library books will have been and continues to be substantial. | |
| Learning objectives: | |
| The questions asked on the survey included: Learning Outcomes, key questions, did the book…: Knowledge and understanding Provide you with insight? Help you learn new facts? Skills Help develop your skills? Attitudes and values Challenge your attitudes? Change your opinions? Enjoyment inspiration creativity Entertain you? Motivate or inspire you? Activity behaviour and progression Change your daily life? Benefit you personally? A full range of potential informal learning outcomes are included in these questions. | |
| DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITY | |
| Date [dd/mm/yyyy] | May-June 2006 |
| Length of activity | Six weeks |
| Frequency | Whenever a book was borrowed in a participating library. |
| Organiser | Colin Bray |
| Tutor | N/A |
| Group Size | 22,000 surveys given out, 5,732 returned |
| Venue | 57 libraries of various sizes |
| Location | Six different local authorities across the south west of England UK |
| Environment | Very much a mix although predominantly rural with two cities (Exeter and Plymouth) participating. |
| Location Factors | The geographical spread and size will limit location factors. |
| Partnerships | Museums Library Archives Council (MLA) for funding; Devon Libraries alongside five other library services. |
| Target group | Attempted to obtain information from all adults that borrowed library books. |
| Contact | colin.bray@devon.gov.uk |
| Marketing | Most of the work was done behind the scenes and was conducted by email. Was not marketed to the public in a conventional sense. |
| Method of delivery | Library staff working in participating libraries was given briefing sheets on the project and how to explain it to the public. |
| Equipment required | An online data capture form was made available to local staff. All other work on analysis and reporting was done virtually. |
| Other Factors | The lack of central control on how local staff talked to library users or adopted the survey locally. The six different library services gave very different levels of returns and the reasons for this have not been explored. |
| Tasks | (Task1) Involving seniors in learning process |
EVALUATION OF ACTIVITY| Evaluation of the Learning Objectives |
| Rather than being a learning activity in its own right the project attempted to highlight learning that is taking place under our noses. See below for further details. |
| Evaluation of the activity |
| Given the scale of the project there were remarkably few problems. This is partly due to excellent corporate support. Any future similar project will need to have a clearer idea of post-project uses of the information. |
| Evaluation of what was learned by the participants |
| A very brief summary of learning outcomes: * 81.4% of books borrowed entertained the reader; * 50.2% of books borrowed resulted in new insight; * 49.8% of books borrowed helped learn new facts; * 28.7% of books borrowed inspired the reader; * 19.6% of books borrowed challenged attitudes; * 14.9% of books borrowed helped develop skills; * 13.2% of books borrowed changed opinions; * 4.2% of books borrowed changed the lives of those that borrowed them. |
| Evaluation of what staff have learned |
| In general terms feedback from staff in Devon included the observation they were pleased there was a focus on books and informal learning in principle. A lot more information not already mentioned was gathered from the forms including informal user comments on library layouts and stock. This provided local library managers with useful information they otherwise would not have had. It is difficult to assess how staff reacted and what they learnt in the five other authorities because post-project feedback was very patchy and in some cases non-existent. |
| Keywords |
| Informal learning; reading; England; Devon; marketing; |
| ANALYSIS OF EVALUATION |
| What would you change to improve activity? |
| It is difficult to reconfigure stock purchases along the lines of learning outcomes. The project was planned to provide evidence of the value of public libraries in their very essence. I would carry out another project of this type in very much the same way as the project detailed. It could possibly be used before and after a new library has been built or refurbished to provide information about how easy it is to find required books in the library before and after, for instance. |
| What particular circumstance could affect a change in the activity? |
| The public attitude to filling in the forms without staff help. The terminology of informal learning may be different in different countries/locations. The informal learning outcomes used above are very much embedded in the library sector in the UK and will vary from place to place. |
| Other possible Activities |
| Such a project could be carried out locally in a particular library. There are clearly economies of scale and credibility given by a large survey size in carrying it out across multiple sites but this would by no means be necessary. |
| Best practice |
| It is the only project of its type in the world as yet so any future projects could no doubt find improvements and locally relevant changes. |
| Transferability: |