This week is all about live library programs, now known as Synchronous on the survey. Beginning this year, the same programs are tracked two different ways – by age and by location.
As previously mentioned, the age groups have been expanded. They are now Children Ages 0-5, Children Ages 6-11, Young Adults Ages 12-18, Adults Ages 19 or Older, and General Interest.
After the age-related program questions, there are now also location-related program questions for both the number of programs and for the program attendance. The categories are In-Person Onsite, In-Person Offsite, and Virtual.
Onsite programs take place at library facilities, including on the library grounds or in front of the bookmobile. Offsite programs occur at places like nursing homes, public schools, or farmer’s markets. If there is no programming element, like a library card sign-up booth at a fair or a float in a parade, that is outreach instead. Virtual sessions are live-streamed.
Let’s say a program is offered simultaneously In-Person Onsite and Virtually. People can attend at the library or live-stream from home. For the Number of Programs questions, you would count it as one for In-Person Onsite but NOT for Virtual. You only count a synchronous virtual program when that is the only way it is offered. For the Program Attendance questions, however, you would enter the In-Person Onsite attendance in its box and the Virtual attendance in its box. If you record that live-stream and share it to your website or on social media, you will count that as an Asynchronous Program. There are a lot of IF-THENs in these changes, and I will be happy to work through them with individual libraries. We’ll have some visual aids for the webinar too.
If a program was scheduled and no one showed up, you still count it as an offered program.
Do not include programs facilitated entirely by outside groups on library property. Either library funds or library staff time must be used for a program to count as co-sponsored by the library.
I’m including a table that many other states have adopted to help with tracking the new program types in 2022. It looks overwhelming at first. The only things you will be reporting are the grey boxes. But for day-to-day tracking purposes, it may be easiest to use the one sheet to capture everything, rather than tracking by age and by program type separately. An important reminder to include for a tracker like this is that all program attendees go into the box for that program’s age range, regardless of the ages of the attendees. If it’s a program for children 6-11, for example, everyone who attends goes into the Attendees box on that line, even the adults and children younger than 6.
As a reminder, the 2021 PLS will have boxes for the previous Children 0-11 category as well, for libraries that do not have 0-5 and 6-11 breakouts for 2021.
Please contact the new State Data Coordinator, Kristen Northrup, with any questions, concerns, or requests for future article content: knorthrup@nd.gov or 701-328-4681.
ND State Library Blog 