In January-February 2025, we conducted a survey for librarians entitled Reading in Time of War. The results track changes in reading habits, demand for literature, and the bibliotherapeutic effect of reading during the war.
Measuring the social impact of libraries is an important tool for assessing their effectiveness and justifying the need for support. It is also an important advocacy tool as it provides objective evidence of their value to the community.
Libraries around the world use a variety of approaches to measure the social impact of their activities, including both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The main goal is to demonstrate how libraries impact the community, education, culture, economy and quality of life. This allows us to assess how they contribute to community development, education, inclusion and social cohesion.
The effectiveness of libraries is best measured by their impact on communities and society. It's not just the number of events, visitors, equipment purchased, or articles written.
In 2021, the "Library Country" and People's Deputy of Ukraine Yevgenia Kravchuk launched a joint campaign "New page" to fill the libraries of small communities with new books. At present, about 50% of the book collections of Ukrainian libraries are outdated books from the Soviet period, therefore prompt and high-quality stocking of public libraries with new books is one of the main tasks of library reform today.