Introduction

This chapter considers the thorny issue of how to meaningfully measure public library performance and asks the question: ‘can evaluations of equality, happiness and well-being be used as proxy performance measures for public libraries?’ Traditionally, public library performance has been assessed in terms of quantitative metrics such as the number of people who visit the library, take out a library card and borrow books and other items. But these numbers tell us nothing about the social impact and value of public libraries. If, however, libraries can be evaluated in terms of the direct and indirect contribution they make to important social outcomes such as equality, happiness and well-being, then they will be better positioned to argue for increased resources, and they will be more able to defend themselves from potential cuts. One of the reasons why it is relatively easy to close a library – rather than a school or a hospital – is that they have not been able to justify their existence by providing hard evidence of their social value.

Libraries’ Holy Grail

Searching for meaningful and measurable impacts and outcomes has become something of a Holy Grail for public libraries. The approach to date has been an attempt to replace quantitative statistical indicators with qualitative outcome measures. But maybe there is another way forward which can translate some of our traditional performance indices – visits, circulation, membership – into proximity measurements for much larger societal impacts and outcomes. This would eliminate the need for each public library to devise its own unique set of outcomes. Instead, all public libraries could focus on their individual contributions to big-picture agendas which have a high local, provincial and national profile.