GREAT insight into the Heritage Health Index and how it relates to Wyoming!

I was on the telephone with Kristin Laise from Heritage Preservation (HP) about another matter. So I took the liberty of asking her about the Heritage Health Index survey.

Kristin said that it is correct that the survey results can only be broken down by Rocky Mountain region. It cannot be broken down by state.

She said that the large museums and libraries in Wyo. received the survey. Smaller museum were sent the survey by random sample. HP sent 73 surveys to Wyo. and received 27 responses for a 37% response rate. (A pretty good response rate, she felt.) She also was not sure that the list HP used for the random sample was a full list of Wyoming museums.

She said that a lot of states are doing a collections survey to gather data about their state using the IMLS planning grants. HP has permission to let the states use their survey instrument in the state surveys. Kristin said that HP spent a lot of time researching the questions, working with heritage organizations to develop questions, making them applicable to museums and libraries, and making the answer choices relevant and valid. The survey instrument was tested for validity and more. HP felt the results of the survey were quite valid, very usable, and very helpful. HP found it did not use the answers to only a couple of questions. It did not have to throw out any of the questions for issues of survey validity or reliability.

Kristin said HP is requesting permission from IMLS to talk to the states planning surveys or to have a conference call (with each state or groups of states) about doing the surveys so that HP can share what it learned in doing the survey with states.

If Wyoming did a survey, timing would be important since so many of our county museums are seasonal and some do not have year round staff. And the museum and library participants would need to be sure that we captured all Wyoming museums.

The University of Wyoming has a department with great survey expertise. It did a survey for the Teton County Library for its strategic planning process a couple of years ago. The library seemed very pleased with the survey. (I can’t recall the department, political science or sociology. Deb Adams, the library director would know.) They would charge a fee for their services. Perhaps the grant could cover having them review the survey instrument, and administer the survey, and compile the results in a meaningful way.

You can pass this email along if you would like.

Lokey Lytjen
Executive Director
Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum