This poster was presented at the Medical Library Association's 2026 Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This poster introduces a new evaluation initiative that combines two complementary approaches to help with 1) visualizing whether participants are geographically located inside or outside of resource limited areas and 2) understanding the intensity level of community engagement in terms of nonmonetary return on investment. The first approach uses mapping visualizations to assess whether outreach goals are being met and to inform new strategies when gaps are identified. The second approach produces useful information that assists outreach teams to better understand their communities’ participation level in library services (e.g., newsletter views, site-visits, classes, event tabling, requests for funds, etc.). The resources being used for this project combine the Spectrum of Public Participation concepts and methodologies (International Association for Public Participation), census tract data (Census.gov), Medically Underserved Area and Population designations (U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration), and open-source client relationship management software (CiviCRM). This resource is supported by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH) under cooperative agreement number UG4LM013732 with the University of Utah’s Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Wittek et al. (Thu,) studied this question.