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From the evaluation report:

Creative Aging in Wyoming Public Libraries is a statewide initiative intended to strengthen Wyoming public libraries as community anchors for positive and creative aging, and to expand arts learning opportunities for older Wyoming residents through their local libraries. It is a collaboration between two state agencies, the Wyoming State Library and the Wyoming Arts Council, and Lifetime Arts, a national nonprofit organization that is a resource center for a particular model of instructional arts programming for older adults. Funding was provided by the May and Stanley Smith Charitable Trust and the Wyoming Community Foundation.

The initiative started with a planning and training phase that ran from December 2020 into May 2021, followed by an implementation phase from late May 2021 through December 2022 in which participating libraries began conducting creative aging programs. The training phase included an orientation webinar in February 2021 for all interested Wyoming library staff and teaching artists. This was followed by In-depth online training workshops (six hours in length) in March 2021 for librarians and library administrators in Wyoming’s 23 county library systems and for prospective teaching artists.

This project included an evaluation component that assessed impact and sought lessons on multiple levels: on participating older adults, librarians, and library systems. It was designed also to build librarians’ skills at documenting these programs, evaluating their impact and generating lessons for greater effectiveness. The evaluation was coordinated by the Touchstone Center for Collaborative Inquiry, a Minneapolis-based evaluation firm that has partnered with Lifetime Arts on several creative aging initiatives. Evaluation data was gathered by library program coordinators, using three instruments designed by Touchstone; and by Touchstone president David Scheie through interviews, focus groups and observations.

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