Community Feedback Framework Planning
Iowa City Public Library
Innovation Synopsis
Assessment is a long process that often takes months of preparation before the true planning process can even begin. While seemingly a daunting process, information garnered from data collection on this scale can complement and inform strategic plans and facilities masterplans, and help organizations understand how to best organize themselves to drive decision-making into the future. The Iowa City Public Library's "Community Feedback Framework Planning Study" is a model for how libraries can research how to approach an assessment process. In collaboration with the University of Iowa Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and the Iowa City Public Library Friends Foundation collaborated to create this study for the Iowa City Public Library.
Challenge/Opportunity
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to library and community assessment. Relying on traditional or repeated assessment processes—without considering evolving community needs, partnerships, and the current social climate—can limit participation, overlook important perspectives, and skew results. This creates an opportunity to develop a more responsive, inclusive, and adaptable assessment framework that combines quantitative and qualitative data with meaningful community engagement.
The Innovation will:
- Develop a living Partner Directory and Affinity Group document to strengthen internal knowledge and relationships.
- Identify current best practices in library and community assessment.
- Create flexible data collection tools to capture both quantitative and qualitative insights.
- Develop adaptable event models that foster community engagement and generate meaningful assessment data.
Key Elements of Innovation
• Goals: ICPLFF developed a Community Feedback Framework to help ICPL build an ongoing, relationship-based approach to assessment—informing the library’s 3–5-year strategic plan and long-range building plan while identifying service gaps and underrepresented voices.
• Implementation: Create a living Affinity Group/Community Partner Directory; deploy redesigned, inclusive surveys; and combine quantitative and qualitative feedback through physical/digital Talkback Boards, QR-enabled outreach, and Community Dialogues/Focus Groups. Feedback can be gathered where people already gather—not only at the library.
• Partners: ICPL/ICPLFF staff; community and nonprofit leaders; University of Iowa; education, social-service, cultural, neighborhood and business organizations.
• Innovation: Moves assessment from a periodic, library-centered survey to a continuous, multi-channel listening system that intentionally seeks missing voices and makes community relationships part of planning infrastructure.
Achieved Outcomes
• Assessment infrastructure created: The Community Feedback Framework produced a living Affinity Group/Community Partner Directory, updated strategic-planning survey, and ready-to-use models for Talkback Boards, digital feedback, Community Dialogues and Focus Groups. These tools now inform the ICPL Assessment Committee’s work.• Success metrics: survey response volume; demographic representation; participation from underrepresented groups; number/diversity of community partners engaged; qualitative themes and service gaps identified; and recommendations incorporated into planning.
• Baseline established: ICPL’s 2022 strategic-plan survey received 179 responses, including only 8 respondents ages 18–24 (4.5%), despite this group representing roughly 21% of Johnson County’s population. The new framework makes improving representation a measurable goal.
• Partnerships: The framework establishes a pipeline for engagement with education, social-service, cultural, neighborhood and community
