The Canadian Index of Wellbeing: A Better Way to Assess and Communicate the Value of Libraries
Historically libraries have struggled to communicate their value in ways meaningful to both policy-makers and the general public. Traditional measures like collection and circulation counts, while useful, fail to capture libraries’ full impact on the lives of their users. The recent dominance of Gro...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The Partnership
2022-01-01
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| Series: | Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research |
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| Online Access: | https://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/article/view/6440 |
| _version_ | 1818283195359035392 |
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| author | Cara Bradley |
| author_facet | Cara Bradley |
| author_sort | Cara Bradley |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Historically libraries have struggled to communicate their value in ways meaningful to both policy-makers and the general public. Traditional measures like collection and circulation counts, while useful, fail to capture libraries’ full impact on the lives of their users. The recent dominance of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the prevailing metric for policy and decision-making frames library value in exclusively economic terms. However, it is overreliance on economic measures like GDP in library assessment that leads to their undue underfunding. Meanwhile a tool like the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW) is a credible alternative metric that shifts the focus from the purely economic toward additional facets of life. Developed through a broad cross-Canada consultation process, the CIW uses eight domains affecting wellbeing: community vitality, democratic engagement, education, environment, healthy populations, leisure and culture, living standards, and time use. Compared with the narrow economic focus of GDP, the CIW is a powerful tool to communicate the true value of public libraries and the impact they have on their users. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-13T00:33:03Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-353e6c79d7cb4b83b7b0bfb553270788 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1911-9593 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-13T00:33:03Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | The Partnership |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research |
| spelling | doaj.art-353e6c79d7cb4b83b7b0bfb5532707882022-12-22T00:05:16ZengThe PartnershipPartnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research1911-95932022-01-01162The Canadian Index of Wellbeing: A Better Way to Assess and Communicate the Value of LibrariesCara Bradley0University of ReginaHistorically libraries have struggled to communicate their value in ways meaningful to both policy-makers and the general public. Traditional measures like collection and circulation counts, while useful, fail to capture libraries’ full impact on the lives of their users. The recent dominance of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the prevailing metric for policy and decision-making frames library value in exclusively economic terms. However, it is overreliance on economic measures like GDP in library assessment that leads to their undue underfunding. Meanwhile a tool like the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW) is a credible alternative metric that shifts the focus from the purely economic toward additional facets of life. Developed through a broad cross-Canada consultation process, the CIW uses eight domains affecting wellbeing: community vitality, democratic engagement, education, environment, healthy populations, leisure and culture, living standards, and time use. Compared with the narrow economic focus of GDP, the CIW is a powerful tool to communicate the true value of public libraries and the impact they have on their users.https://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/article/view/6440public librarieswellbeingCanadian Index of Wellbeinglibrary value |
| spellingShingle | Cara Bradley The Canadian Index of Wellbeing: A Better Way to Assess and Communicate the Value of Libraries Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research public libraries wellbeing Canadian Index of Wellbeing library value |
| title | The Canadian Index of Wellbeing: A Better Way to Assess and Communicate the Value of Libraries |
| title_full | The Canadian Index of Wellbeing: A Better Way to Assess and Communicate the Value of Libraries |
| title_fullStr | The Canadian Index of Wellbeing: A Better Way to Assess and Communicate the Value of Libraries |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Canadian Index of Wellbeing: A Better Way to Assess and Communicate the Value of Libraries |
| title_short | The Canadian Index of Wellbeing: A Better Way to Assess and Communicate the Value of Libraries |
| title_sort | canadian index of wellbeing a better way to assess and communicate the value of libraries |
| topic | public libraries wellbeing Canadian Index of Wellbeing library value |
| url | https://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/article/view/6440 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT carabradley thecanadianindexofwellbeingabetterwaytoassessandcommunicatethevalueoflibraries AT carabradley canadianindexofwellbeingabetterwaytoassessandcommunicatethevalueoflibraries |