We were able to arrange to meet with our industry contact after we had provided all of the monthly information and attended their health fairs. We used a semi-structured interview with our industry contact to find out what she perceived to be useful formats and types of information, as well as gathering thoughts on what should be included in future efforts. We learned that in order to disseminate our information through the internal television network or through newsletters, the use had to be reviewed and approved by additional levels of administration. However, use of some of our material was scheduled for the month following our interview.
If you are planning an outreach effort at a large corporation, keep in mind that the timeline for using or implementing your material may be longer than you expect.
Another metric that we used to get an idea of the level of interest in our services was health fair distribution of CAPHIS brochures. We distributed 227 brochures at the two company health fairs. Total attendance at the fairs was 600. The brochures featured a cover sticker with the URL for the company-specific LibGuide. We solicited CAPHIS requests at the health fairs and encouraged employees who stopped to chat with us to call or email later with questions. While at the fair we received nine requests from employees. We have yet to see an uptick in numbers of either numbers of CAPHIS requests or LibGuide hits. Again, this may be an effort that bears more fruit down the road. We have the opportunity to return for future health fairs and will do so to maintain a presence.
If you're not familiar with conducting a structured interview, the following articles may be of interest. The intended audience is individuals doing many interviews for research, not just information-gathering, but the overview and strategies are relevant.
Adams E. The joys and challenges of semi-structured interviewing. Community Pract. 2010 Jul;83(7):18-21.
Doody O, Noonan M. Preparing and conducting interviews to collect data. Nurse Res. 2013 May; 20(5): 28-32.
Gardner MR. Conceptual, holistic, and pragmatic considerations for interviewing research participants. Holist Nurs Pract. 2010 May-Jun;24(3):148-57.
You can learn about evaluation generally at the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) Outreach Evaluation Resource Center:
Guide to Planning and Evaluating Health Information Outreach.