We’re all about the importance of evaluation here at Creative Arts East, and we want to share with you some of our thoughts on this topic, as well as sharing those of Sarah Bedingfield as our last guest vlogger. Sarah is the services manager for Innovation, Digital & Libraries for Kent County Council.
The latest one is now available to watch as an eight-minute talk from Sarah with her perspective on the Importance of Evaluation for Touring Arts in Libraries.
She walks us through the ways in which Kent Libraries approach evaluation. With 99 libraries across Kent, the service has a unique task in the south east in implementing an effective evaluation framework that works for such a wide range of libraries, events and audiences.
From understanding the reasons for evaluating which are specific to your service aims, to using the data gathered effectively, there is a lot to consider. Each library service is different and there are many different frameworks for evaluating. The key is tailoring your approach to suit the aims and objectives of your service and local authority, as well as collecting information which will form a complete and rich understanding of the impact of touring arts on your libraries and audiences – and ways to move forward based on what is found.
Considering evaluation collection from an audience perspective can also influence your chosen approach: whether that’s designing creative ways of collection, or working with touring companies to streamline evaluation so audience members aren’t swamped with feedback forms. There are ways to get useful information (feedback, numbers, social media analytics, conversations, observations, and audience profiling) which if done well, can support a more valuable experience, on the day of the event itself, and for future programming.
Click below to view Sarah’s vlog and the others in the series.
This vlog will explore the following themes surrounding evaluation:
– How to suit your evaluation strategy to your service
– How to define your outcomes
– Ways to incorporate equality and diversity in evaluation
– How to measure and collate evidence
– How to collect qualitative evaluation
– How to use your evaluation effectively
Let us know how your service approaches evaluation, we’d love to hear about any creative ways you go about collecting yours.
