Measuring the Value and Impact
of Hospital Library Services
Penka Stoyanova, MISt
The Credit Valley Hospital and Trillium Health Centre
Partners in Crime 
• Christina Woodward, MA, MLIS, Trillium
Health Centre
• Penka Stoyanova, MISt, The Credit Valley
Hospital (pstoyanova@cvh.on.ca)
• Jeanna Hough, MA, MLIS, Halton Healthcare
System (jhough@haltonhealthcare.on.ca)
Library Survey - Background
• September 2010 – CVH and THC
• Timing
– Projected merger of CVH and THC
– Transition to teaching status
– Development of new clinical initiatives aligned with
strategic initiatives at both hospitals
• Quality Patient Care, Access, Sustainability
• Research, Education, Innovation
• Results - Poster at the Annual Conference of the
Canadian Health Libraries Association 2011 in
Calgary, Alberta
Background – cont’d
• October 2011 – CVH, THC, HHS
• Hypothesis – Our hospital libraries:
– Support clinical and non-clinical evidence-based
decision-making and practice
– Support research and manuscript preparation
(policies, procedures, publications)
– Support staff and students in their learning and
current awareness needs
Library Survey – Opportunity to…
• Determine impact of
library resources and
services
• Keep pace with changing
user needs, identify user
preferences and future
needs
• Continue examining our
products and services
with respect to new and
emerging technologies
• Document user
perspective on the
strengths of library
products and services
• Validate identified
resource needs to our
administration
• Contribute to a needed
pool of data in support of
the value and impact of
library services in
hospitals
Methodology
• Survey instrument – three
sections:
– Resource
– Knowledge
– Utility
• Questions concentrate on
available resources, NOT
librarian-mediated services,
so that respondents can
draw their own conclusions
regarding the value/impact
of the Library and its
resources
• When needed – questions
were tailored to the
individual hospital
environment, but were
presented so that we could
still benchmark off one
another
• Copies of the survey are
available upon request
Methodology – continued
• Tools
– Zoomerang Online Surveys and Polls (THC)
– TooFAST (free assessment summary tool www.toofast.ca) at
CVH and HHS
– For consistency data was exported in MS Excel for analysis
• Distribution
– Electronically from several access points at the hospitals
intranet portals
– Available in hard copy, with the data transcribed to Zoomerang
and TooFAST by library staff
• The survey was open for a period of about one month
• Open to all affiliated physicians, clinical and non-clinical
staff
Survey Participants
CVH
THC
HHS
Physician
17%
5%
0%
Nurse
35%
29%
29%
Pharmacist
5%
7%
5%
Allied Health
25%
36%
20%
Other, please specify:
18%
24%
47%
Total
100%
100%
100%
Impact of Library Services
How has your use of library services
impacted your work in the past year?
• 23-41% - improved
patient care decisions
• 3-6% - decreased adverse
events, or led to changes
in diagnostic tests
• 58-68% - supported their
learning
• 35-50% supported best
practice guidelines
• 36-48% - saved them time
• 6-8% - impacted cost
reduction
• 35-54% - indicated ability
to stay current in their
area of interest
• 25-44% supported their
projects
Library Resources – A Tool for…
Motivation for Information Seeking
Benchmarking
More Benchmarking
Utility of Library Services (Are you
satisfied with …)
How often do you visit the library?
Is the Library intranet site
easy to use?
Do you have remote access
to Library resources?
Response Time Expectations
Discussion
• Some of the things we learned about our users:
– What motivates their information seeking behaviour –
acquiring new knowledge, patient care, best practices
– Which of our resources they used most – access to full
text, mediated literature searches, article requests
– What they think about our space and decor
– How often they visit the libraries
– What are their response time expectations
– What they think of library staff and the services we
provide
Discussion – cont’d
• Survey respondents indicated the significant role of the
library in support of
– Their learning, studies, and staying current
– Best practice guidelines development and publications and
other projects
– Patient care decision making
• Validated that resources do impact outcomes
– Improved patient care decisions
– Saved time
– Led to cost reduction
CVH (2010 and 2011)
What we do best?
• Excellent services from
library staff
– competent, knowledge-able,
have the right attitude
• Library services support
– clinical/non-clinical areas
– evidence-based decision
making
• Fast and efficient services
What needs improvement?
• Space is limited; number
of workstations is not
enough
• Training/promotion of
services
– remote (offsite) access
– ID cards access 24/7
– group training sessions
• Need for more online fulltext resources
21
Conclusions
• Library usage stats convey only a part of the
impact of libraries and their resources
• Our users
– See the Library’s role as significant (value of the
library)
– Validate that resources do impact outcomes
• How will we use the results?
– Present to senior administrators/budget purposes
– Share with colleagues
Thank you!
• For supporting the
launching of the survey
at all three sites
• Melissa Paladines,
Library Technician, CVH,
for her enthusiastic
support and assistance
in running the survey