In an era when questions of economic impact threaten to monopolize public discourse about the value of arts and culture, it is refreshing to see a new report from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), in which the authors state, without apology: “The vast majority of libraries and museums are not large employers and will never provide the muscle to significantly drive local economies….”

Happily, there’s more. The sentence resumes: “…but [my emphasis] they are indispensable connective tissue that keep healthy communities together.” This clause is no afterthought. As the reader of Understanding the Social Wellbeing Impacts of the Nation’s Libraries and Museums will discover, the IMLS report provides ample testimony, in the form of statistics and case studies, to support the authors’ claim.

The researchers’ statistical modeling shows that the presence and usage of libraries was positively linked to community health and local school effectiveness, even after the researchers controlled for a county’s economic well-being and the size of the non-Hispanic white population inhabiting the county. In rural counties, the relationship with community health was especially pronounced.

By contrast, the researchers could detect no significant relationship between museums and either one of the two outcome areas of study: community health and school effectiveness. The report cautions, however, about “profound limitations” with the museum data, as well as the “limited availability of consistent measures of the presence and usage of museums across the country.” In the analysis, economic well-being was positively associated with museums but not libraries, and—to a greater extent—with both community health and school effectiveness.

Indeed, the impact of economic well-being on those two outcome areas is well-documented, the researchers observe. But by supporting community health and school effectiveness, the report suggests, museums and libraries can either “reinforce (in the case of better-off counties) or mitigate (in the case of poorer counties) the relationship between economic status and social wellbeing.” This potentially mediating effect of museums and libraries on economic disparities is a novel conclusion from the report.

Elsewhere, drawing largely from the report’s case study findings, the authors write: “Libraries and museums can be catalysts in their communities to promote racial equity and inclusion.” This is so because such institutions are “highly networked in their communities,” perceived as trustworthy, and play host to “diverse populations who circulate through their spaces.”

Roughly three years in the making, the study uses data from IMLS’ Public Libraries Survey and Museum University Data File to examine the presence and usage of these cultural institutions. (Both data sources are available at the NEA’s National Archive of Data on Arts & Culture.) In addition, based on other data from federal, academic, and foundation sources, the team built three indexes that correspond with plausible dimensions of social well-being that one might associate with museums and libraries at the county level.

Although the report names a total of 10 dimensions of social well-being that are hypothetically linked with museums and libraries, the researchers chose to index the three dimensions for “more targeted analysis”: school effectiveness; community health; and economic well-being.

School effectiveness was chosen as an index topic because “all libraries and museums have a commitment to education and learning embedded in their mission statements,” the report states. Measures composing this index are: average math and reading scores on standardized tests; and graduation and dropout rates.

The second index topic, community health, was identified because a prior IMLS study found that museums and libraries are pursuing a variety of “innovative ways” to support the health of their patrons and communities. COVID-19 also has heightened the relevance of this index, which is populated by a host of metrics—e.g., premature mortality rates and number of uninsured adults and preventable hospital stays.

The third index, on economic well-being, captures a “a critical context for the role and function of a community’s libraries and museums,” the report suggests. (Note that the researchers characterize this domain as contextual and not necessarily central to the activities of museums and libraries.) The economic well-being index fuses such variables as educational attainment level, median household income, and share of residents in the workforce, among others.

Despite tracking these variables at the county level, the authors advise that economic impact studies of museums and libraries should  “proceed with caution,” as “economic wellbeing is an important dimension of the quality of life in a place, but it is not the only one.” More promising, in terms of future research projects, are studies that can “demonstrate a direct connection between the psychosocial benefits for museum and library patrons and measurable economic benefits,” the report offers.  (Although it does not include an economic-impact component, a NEA Research Lab at the University of Pennsylvania is currently exploring the relationship of art museum practices to “human flourishing” as a social-emotional outcome.)

Apart from the quantitative research findings discussed above, the IMLS report is valuable chiefly for its case studies of 24 museums and libraries. For each institution, IMLS provides a data inventory as well as findings from interviews and document reviews.

As an impressive feature of the case studies, the researchers show a “network map” of relationships that each institution has made with other community entities. The report urges similar “innovative approaches to documenting the networks libraries and museums support and estimating their effects.” For example, “future studies…could [estimate] social cohesion and social capital formation,” the report says.  Here it should be noted that for many years now, the Association of Art Museum Directors has mapped participating museums and partner organizations, as a way of demonstrating reach.

The IMLS study was conducted by Reinvestment Fund, in partnership with the Social Impact of the Arts Project at University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice, and HR&A Advisors. Even for other types of cultural organizations, the report is instructive for its theoretical framework and mixed-methods research approach toward understanding museums and libraries not only in terms of programmatic output, but also for their participation in many formal and informal networks that contribute to larger, sustained benefits within a community. We just need to be comfortable with knowing that these benefits may register in ways not expressed primarily as economic impact.

Sunil Iyengar directs the Office of Research & Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts.