Patron Impact & Satisfaction Researcher - Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

Job Description

Job Description

Description

Overview

The Strategy & Public Impact team is The New York Public Library’s central node of information and insights about its users, usage, and impact. We support decision makers and program staff across the institution through business intelligence, impact assessment, strategic conversations, user research, and data mentorship.

The Patron Impact & Satisfaction Researcher will play an important role in helping the Library meet its full potential as a vital, relevant, and accessible public institution that is equitably used across our service area. Our patrons’ satisfaction with the quality and outcomes of their library experience not only influences their future library use - it can also shape their views of, and support for, civic institutions and public life more broadly.  

The Patron Impact & Satisfaction Researcher’s mandate is the development, analysis, and dissemination of survey-derived metrics tracking our patron (and broader community) experience, satisfaction, and impact, at the  level of the Library overall, as well as its specific programs and services.

This is a great opportunity for someone interested in applying their research and analytical skills to identifying the drivers underlying library “magic” and recommending ways to broaden and deepen it, thereby enhancing our benefit to the communities we serve.

Key responsibilities

• Metric development: Translate outcome and impact goals from internal logic models into a core set of experience, satisfaction, and impact measures for specific offerings, and for the Library overall
• Survey development and testing: Operationalize these metrics into survey questions to be administered to patrons and community members
• Data infrastructure: Build the process by which these metrics are regularly gathered, at scale, in living data streams across the Library’s physical and digital touchpoints
• Data monitoring: Develop approaches to continuously track patterns in metrics
• Data analysis: Determine the core drivers underlying experience, satisfaction, and impact across time, location, audience, and at key points in service life cycle
• Synthesis with other research: Build bridges between these metrics and the Strategy & Public Impact team’s other data streams, marrying trends and insights from survey responses to patterns of usage (e.g. attendance, borrowing) 
• Opportunity identification: Make programmatic and policy recommendations to better fulfill unmet patron and community needs
• Cross-team communication and partnership: Share trends, insights, and recommendations with program and operational partners across the Library, collaborating on actionable improvements to experience, satisfaction, and impact

In 1 month, the Patron Impact & Satisfaction Researcher will:

• Get acquainted with Strategy and Public Impact patron research approaches and our qualitative and quantitative data streams
• Learn the organizational structure of the Library, meet our key internal stakeholders, and absorb what we have already learned about our patrons and the communities they come from
• Get acquainted with the Library’s mission and current goals of the major divisions of the institution

In 3 months, they will:

• Become proficient in our ongoing patron research, existing metrics and key reports, and identify areas of patron experience and library impact for core metric development
• Join the team in creating and fielding patron and staff surveys, and drafting reports based on our findings

In 6 months, they will:

• Take primary responsibility for survey-based research: from understanding the research questions, through translating them into survey questions and methodologies, and fielding patron and staff surveys, to analyzing and synthesizing the results
• Suggest ways of enriching and deepening the findings from qualitative research and surveys with other data streams (e.g., circulation or visits)
• Independently prepare reports communicating our findings to various internal and external audiences
• Join the team in raising and articulating questions driving our future research agenda

Required Education, Experience & Skills

Required Education & Certifications

• Bachelor’s degree required, a graduate degree in social science or other relevant discipline recommended
• 2 years of hands-on professional experience - or an equivalent combination of education and work experience - in an applied research role involving survey and metrics development and analysis
• Preferred experience with survey-based research in a non-profit, educational or cultural institution setting

Required Skills

• Strong command of survey methods and evaluation methodologies, including potential research questions and techniques and research tools/software
• Familiarity with core statistical techniques such as significance testing, correlation, regression, distributions, factor and cluster analysis, and basic predictive modeling
• Basic proficiency in R (preferred), Python, or other statistical programming language
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office and Google apps suites, especially Excel and Google sheets
• Ability to systematize output from, and detect patterns within, qualitative data sets
• Ability to independently produce high-standard, presentation-ready deliverables
• Ability to clearly and persuasively communicate analytical insights and methodologies verbally, visually, and in writing to employees at all levels of the organization
• Ability to to establish trusting relationships within a diverse organization, across multiple levels of management and staff
• Demonstrated learning mindset, with a continual appetite for developing skills, asking new questions, and absorbing information
• Preferred: ability to communicate effectively in Spanish or Chinese

Managerial/Supervisory Responsibilities

More...

Please Note: Effective August 2, 2021, absent a qualifying exception for medical or religious reasons, newly hired employees of the New York Public Library must present proof of receipt of a COVID-19 vaccination and may not begin employment at the Library until 14 days after their receipt of their second dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or 14 days after their first dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.  Newly hired employees who need additional time to receive their vaccination prior to their start date may request an adjournment of their start date with their hiring manager.  The Library will consider such requests on a case by case basis, depending upon the Library’s operational needs, among other factors.  The Library will further consider exemptions for prospective employees who cannot become vaccinated due to a qualifying medical condition or a sincerely held religious belief or practice.  Candidates who receive a conditional offer of employment and who seek a medical or religious exemption to the Library’s vaccination policy will be provided with additional instructions at the time of the conditional offer.

Core Values
All team members are expected and encouraged to embody the NYPL Core Values:

• Be Helpful to patrons and colleagues
• Be Resourceful in solving problems 
• Be Curious in all aspects of your work
• Be Welcoming and Inclusive

Work Environment

• Office setting (with some flexibility to telecommute 2-3 days a week, work duties and general Library policy allowing)

Managerial/Supervisory Responsibilities
N/A

Physical Duties

• May require travel within NYC (related to fielding surveys, visiting NYPL branches and the communities we serve)

Pre-Placement Physical Required?
No

Union/Non Union
Non-Union

FLSA Status
Exempt

Schedule

• 35 hrs/week