Determining How Libraries and Librarians Help.

THIS ARTICLE EXAMINES THE QUESTION, "What differences do libraries and librarians make?" primarily from the perspective of geographical communities. The article first states the reasons why this is an essential research question and describes the contributions of current public library planning tools to the determination of impact. It then takes a broad look at the framework that is essential tot the intellectual development of this topic and the ability to answer the question, including methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks that will be discussed throughout. While the authors pose this research problem as an evaluation question, this article examines contributions of research in several areas--particularly professional practice, especially reference research that has been informed by qualitative methods--to its solution. Finally, the authors examine approaches to studying context as a framework for determining the impacts of library services and include a brief presentation of findings from a recent study of "How Libraries and Librarians Help: Context-Centered Methods tot Evaluating Public Library Efforts at Bridging the Digital Divide and Building Community," funded by the Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS).