Transforming Impact Assessment: The British Library Case Study

Background

The British Library, the UK’s national library, holds over 150 million items and serves diverse audiences, including academic researchers, entrepreneurs, start-ups, SMEs, and the general public. Since 2006, it has supported entrepreneurs and SMEs through its extensive collection of business and intellectual property resources.

In 2012, the British Library launched the Business & IP Centre (BIPC) National Network, which includes over 15 regional and city libraries. These Centres provide free access to comprehensive business and intellectual property information and offer workshops, one-on-one sessions, and events to support business development. Customer feedback from these activities helps the British Library improve its programs and demonstrate their effectiveness to stakeholders.

The challenge

The British Library faced significant inefficiencies in its feedback collection process. Feedback was gathered via paper forms, manually entered into a 13-year-old database, and then analyzed in Excel. This outdated system was time-consuming and resource-intensive.

Our solution 

To address these issues, we implemented the ImpactOS platform, creating a unified and efficient customer feedback system that was fast, scalable and adaptable.

Key steps included:

1. Digital feedback forms: We replaced paper forms with digital ones, mirroring existing questions while allowing customisation for specific events.
2. Data migration: Historical feedback data, totalling over 100,000 records, was migrated to a new, scalable platform. This allowed for both historical and current data analysis.
3. Local and national access: Using ImpactOS’ enterprise permissions module, each BIPC gained local control over feedback analysis while the British Library could oversee the entire network.
4. Automation: We integrated the platform with Eventbrite using our OpenAPI to automate post-event survey distribution.

Pivoting during COVID-19

COVID-19 required rapid adaptation for online events. We developed an ‘Event Hub’ to centralize participant registrations from multiple platforms, ensuring seamless post-event survey distribution.

The migration

The migration of data from the 13-year-old database presented its share of hurdles. The task involved manual cleansing and re-mapping of records due to varied historical naming conventions, sanity checks to validate each record for data accuracy, rebuilding validation rules to allow exceptions for older data, and linking each entry to a specific BIPC centre for localized data access. The size of the operation also demanded careful planning for consistent data import over an extensive time.

The results

The ImpactOS platform streamlined the British Library’s feedback processes, unlocking deeper social impact insights and improving service delivery. Digital surveys enhanced data analysis, shaping future BIPC services based on qualitative feedback. The platform’s reports provided rich demographic insights and tracked customer journeys, demonstrating high service standards with a 4.5 out of 5 average customer satisfaction score.

The BIPC also highlighted its service accessibility, with 64% of customers being female entrepreneurs and 42% from minority ethnic backgrounds. This support for small businesses contributes significantly to local economies, fostering community development and sustainability.

Testimonial

Simon Martin, Manager at the British Library, said: “Our experience with ImpactOS has been incredibly positive. The team are always helpful, and quick to respond to any questions or queries we might have. The process of setting up the digital feedback form, creating individual Library accounts and uploading the large amount of customer feedback contained within our previous database was managed very smoothly.

The ImpactOS platform has been incredibly time saving for the Business & IP Centre National Network, saving us many hours that would otherwise have been spent manually inputting customer feedback forms onto our old database. The time that we’ve saved has been put to use supporting more customers and improving and adapting our services.”

Conclusion

Our collaboration with the British Library has transformed their feedback collection and analysis, enhancing their ability to support entrepreneurs and SMEs effectively. The ImpactOS platform has proven to be a crucial tool in demonstrating the social value and impact of the BIPC’s services.