Bøger af Melissa Gross

Planning and assessment are both crucial elements of a public library that functions efficiently and flexibly. So why are they often treated as separate processes? This concise book combines planning and evaluation in a holistic approach, helping public library managers and staff put library resources to work for the community. Based on a series of successful workshops, the workflow presented by the authors is made up of manageable steps for integrating outcome-based planning and evaluation (OBPE) into the routine functions of the public library. Offering step by step guidance that's transparent and easy to follow, this book introduces the concept of OBPE and explains how it can be a streamlined, effective method of getting library users' feedback; defines "e;outcomes"e; and shows why public libraries should use them to plan and evaluate services; shares methodologies for assessing community needs and interests, including key informant interviews, surveys, focus groups, and environmental scans; demonstrates how to use community assessment data to create outcome statements that not only guide the creation of new library services, but also provide targets for measuring the effectiveness of those services; offers techniques for designing services that directly serve the community while also achieving the outcomes the library has targeted; and provides tips for sharing the results with stakeholders and maximizing successful outcome-based programs to leverage the library's role in the community. Featuring plentiful examples of how to proceed through each phase of the OBPE model, this book boils down planning and evaluation into an approachable, easy to understand process for public librarians, library managers, and grant writers.

Not long after becoming public health concerns in the 1980s, HIV and AIDS were featured in a number of works of fiction, though such titles were written primarily for adult readers. Mirroring the diseases indiscriminate nature, however, the subject would soon be incorporated into novels aimed at young adults. Despite a need for accessible information on the subject, it is difficult to identify fiction that contains material about HIV/AIDS, as these books are seldom catalogued for this content, nor is this content consistently acknowledged in published reviews.In HIV/AIDS in Young Adult Novels: An Annotated Bibliography, the authors address this gap by identifying and assessing the full range of young adult novels that include HIV/AIDS content. This resource is comprised of two major parts. The first part summarizes findings from a content analysis performed on novels written for readers aged 11-19, published since 1981, and featuring at least one character with HIV/AIDS. The second part is an annotated bibliography of the more than 90 novels identified for use in the study. Each entry in the bibliography contains an annotation that summarizes the plot and how HIV/AIDS is depicted in the story, an indication of the accuracy of the HIV/AIDS content, a note on how central HIV/AIDS is to the story, and an evaluation of the literary quality of the book. This work will assist readers in collecting, choosing, evaluating, and using these works to educate readers about HIV/AIDS.