An illuminative evaluation programme for assessing information services

The account of illuminative evaluation contributed by Colin Harris to the October 1977 issue of Aslib Proceedings was timely. Too little attention is usually paid to the effects of new information services or changes in systems. Evaluation will be a central concern of the next stage of Project INISS (a research project on the information needs and information services in local authority social services departments). The new stage of our work involves persuading social services departments to adopt some ideas for improving the communication of information, for a trial period. We intend to take an active part in introducing, monitoring and evaluating these innovations, all of which are low-cost, small-scale suggestions which offer real prospects of eventual adoption in other departments. Most of these innovations are familiar to information workers, but not to people in these organizations.