WebJunction

 WebJunction releases final report on Ohio Rural Library Sustainability Workshops

In 2006 and 2007, Ohio participated in the WebJunction Rural Library Sustainability Project (RLS). This project, funded through a grant by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was designed to empower small and rural libraries with information, resources, and connections to help them meet their unique challenges in managing and sustaining public access computing.  Between 2005 and 2007 forty two states participated in the Rural Library Sustainability Project.  Over 6,000 rural and small library staff benefited through nearly 300 workshops offered around the country.

The State Library of Ohio recently received the final report from WebJunction summarizing the data from the original workshops as well as data from the follow-up evaluations sent by WebJunction staff.  Ohio delivered 16 workshops to 181 library staff between July 2006 and May 2007.  Additionally, five Ohio librarians were selected to participate in additional training at the 2007 ALA Annual Conference. 

Impact of the Rural Library Sustainability (RLS) workshops was measured by progress on the Rural Library Sustainability Continuum as indicated on participant pre- and

post-assessments. Some key findings from Ohio include:

• 44 of 51 of Ohio’s participating respondents have regular or strong in-house tech
• 29 of 57 participants say that they answer their tech questions with regular

communication between library consultants, listservs, and/or WebJunction

• 40 of 54 report performing regularly scheduled maintenance and upgrades
• 36 of 53 of Ohio’ participating libraries now have a plan for upgrading hardware and software
• 41 of 53 report they collect statistics (in some form) on their technology-related services.
  

The Ohio workshops were extremely well-received, in large part due to the trainer, Jay Burton, Head of Professional Development at the State Library.  According to the report,  Ohio received some of the highest marks in the nation with 98% of participants agreeing or strongly agreeing that their workshop had clear goals and met them, the workshop was valuable, and it met or exceeded their expectations. Jay Burton received even high marks with 99% of participants strongly agreeing or agreeing that the instructor was knowledgeable, had good presentation skills, encouraged participation and addressed their level and needs.

The complete report can be viewed at:

For more information on the Rural Library Sustainability Project itself, including a copy of the Continuum and access to the WebJunction Rural Library Sustainability Online Course, go to:  http://www.webjunction.org/do/Navigation?category=498