Readers Day Toolkit
07. Evaluation
It is vital to get good feedback from your event. You obviously want to know who has attended, where they have come from and how they found out about it. You also want to know if the event lived up to expectations and what people got out of it. This can provide you with a rich source of useful comments for you to use in future reports and documents. It also helps to shape future events.
People are more likely to fill an evaluation form in if they get something in return. Giving a goody bag in return has acted as a way of ensuring a 100% response rate. You need to announce that this is what you want at the start of the day.
Goody bags are very popular but can be difficult to fill. Obviously you can include publicity materials from your own and partner organisations. Books are an appropriate inclusion and need to be begged from any sources you feel comfortable about approaching. The publishers of authors involved in your day should be asked, but they are often only able to donate small quantities.
Remember to get some feedback from your authors as well. It is a good idea to send an evaluation sheet with your thank you letter immediately after the event. This helps to reinforce the overall impression of the success of the event. It also helps you to find out if individual authors would be interested in taking part in future events.
Librarians in the North West have pioneered partnership working to encourage new readers into libraries. Time To Read is a partnership of librarians engaged in reader development activity in public library authorities in the North West Region. All 23 public library authorities in the region currently support Time To Read.