The last week of July, I was privileged to be part of a special, first-time event, the Research Institute for Public Libraries.  RIPL (pronounced <ripple>) was a partnership effort of the Library Research Service (LRS), the Colorado State Library (CSL), and the Colorado Library Consortium (CLiC), hosted by Nicolle Steffen and Dr. Linda Hofschire, Dr. Sharon Morris, and Elizabeth Kelsen Huber, respectively.  The event and its curriculum were Linda’s brainchild; but, it took the whole team and their organizations to make it the tour de force it became.  In addition, RIPL was sponsored generously by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and several vendors, including Baker & Taylor, Counting Opinions, Edge Initiative, Impact Survey (a University of Washington project), Gale/Cengage, and the Public Library Association’s new Project Outcome.

On Tuesday morning, July 28, I joined Nicolle in presenting the inaugural event’s first session, How to Create Your Library’s Data Roadmap.  Our PowerPoint presentation may be found here.

On Wednesday afternoon, July 29, I joined Rochelle Logan, former LRS Associate Director and recently retired Associate Director of Support Services at Douglas County Libraries, in presenting a session titled How to Find Your Library’s High Water Mark: Benchmarking to Set a Course for Your Library.  Among other things, I referenced Ray Lyons’ and my long-running work on the Library Journal (LJ) Index of Public Library Service and its Star Library ratings.  Our PowerPoint presentation may be found here.

Everyone present seemed to agree that RIPL was an indisputable success, and holds high hopes for its future.  Watch here and at http://www.LRS.org for news of future RIPL developments.