Library Performance and Service Competition

Library Performance and Service Competition
Author: Larry Nash White
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2014-01-23
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 178063126X

A practice-driven and proven resource for library administrators of all types of libraries. The work describes how the library can identify the service environment factors impacting customers; strategic needs; identify library competitors; strategic abilities and service environment impacts; and use the combined results to develop proactive competitive responses that drive the service environment instead of reacting to the service environment. These strategic competitive responses would allow the library to increase the value of its service impact and effectiveness while increasing customer appreciation and the libraries advantage in the competitive service environment. Written by a highly knowledgeable practitioner from the library field Experience of the author (library and for-profit management experience) provides a hybrid/blended view of library competition and management responses from both the library and for-profit management worlds Written to applicable to all types of libraries

Measuring Library Performance

Measuring Library Performance
Author: Peter Brophy
Publisher: Facet Publishing
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2006
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1856045935

Measuring the performance of a library's services is one of the most crucial parts of providing a good service. This important book is the first to provide an accessible account of current thinking on the evaluation of library services, both traditional and - importantly - electronic library services. Illustrated throughout with a range of international examples across different types of libraries, this book will become the standard work on performance measurement. The book is structured to focus first of all on the intended user of the services (outcome and impact perspectives), then to look at the management of the service (output and process issues), then at evaluating the building blocks of services (input issues) and finally to draw together these strands by examining some of the broader frameworks for evaluation which have emerged. The book ends with an extensive Appendix with a description of key methodologies and suitable references. Each chapter includes suggestions for further reading as well as key references. The key areas addressed include: user satisfaction impact on users economic impact inputs evaluating processes counting the outputs acquiring content staff evaluating infrastructure benchmarking and balanced scorecard standards based approaches. Readership: The emphasis on principles and techniques in the book means that it is perfect reading for busy practitioners but it is also eminently suitable for students and researchers trying to get to grips with this tricky area.

Performance Measurement in Library and Information Services

Performance Measurement in Library and Information Services
Author: Christine Abbott
Publisher: London : Aslib
Total Pages: 72
Release: 1994
Genre: Information services
ISBN:

This is a practical guide covering the types of indicators to use and the role of performance measurement in LIS management. The book is aimed at all those who wish to measure the performance of their service, and are unsure where to start.

Assessing Academic Library Performance

Assessing Academic Library Performance
Author: Holt Zaugg
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2021-10-29
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1538149249

Assessment is essential to describe a library’s value and to inform decision-making. Using the four key assessment components of design, data collection, data analysis, and dissemination, Assessing Academic Library Performance: A Handbook provides strategies and case studies for performing four different types of assessments: Service assessments for the library’s outward and inward facing services that either help library users or other library employees to help users. These assessments focus on providing and improving how things are done to better serve others. Resources assessments for the physical and virtual resources that the library has in its holdings or to which it provides access. Resources are the reason libraries exist as they help patrons in instructional and research pursuits. Space assessments for physical and online library spaces. These assessments help ensure that spaces meet user needs. Personnel relationship assessments look at how library employees interact with each other. as library professionals. While not for evaluation or advancement purposes, these types of assessments provide information on what library employees can do to improve their relationships with one another. Each section has information on conducting each aspect of libraries followed by three examples to illustrate how assessment is used to support descriptions of library value and to help library employees make decisions that are critical to library improvement.

The Entrepreneurial Librarian

The Entrepreneurial Librarian
Author: Mary Krautter
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2014-01-10
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0786490128

The old image of an entrepreneur as a scrappy, independent risk-taker has been replaced by the reality of individuals incorporating innovative ideas in more traditional settings. This collection of essays illustrates how librarians are infusing entrepreneurial principles in a variety of arenas, including public, private, academic, and special libraries. It chronicles how entrepreneurial librarians are flourishing in the digital age, advocating social change, responding to patron demands, designing new services, and developing exciting fundraising programs. Applying new business models to traditional services, they eagerly embrace entrepreneurship in response to patrons' demands, funding declines, changing resource formats, and other challenges. By documenting the current state of entrepreneurship in libraries, this volume upends the public image of librarians as ill-suited to risky or creative ventures and places them instead on the cutting edge of innovations in the field.

Assessing Service Quality

Assessing Service Quality
Author: Peter Hernon
Publisher: American Library Association
Total Pages: 552
Release: 2015-05-12
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0838913083

Academic and public libraries are continuing to transform as the information landscape changes, expanding their missions into new service roles that call for improved organizational performance and accountability. Since Assessing Service Quality premiered in 1998, receiving the prestigious Highsmith Library Literature Award, scores of library managers and administrators have trusted its guidance for applying a customer-centered approach to service quality and performance evaluation. This extensively revised and updated edition explores even further the ways technology influences both the experiences of library customers and the ways libraries themselves can assess those experiences. With a clear focus on real-world application, the authors Challenge conventional thinking about the utility of input, output, and performance metrics by suggesting new ways to think about the evaluation and assessment of library servicesExplain service quality and customer satisfaction, and demonstrate how they are separate but intertwinedIdentify procedures for qualitatively and quantitatively measuring both service quality and satisfactionEncourage libraries to take action by presenting concrete steps they can take to become more customer-centricOffer a range of customer-related metrics that provide insights useful for library planning and decision making, such as surveys and focus groupsThis book shows how to nurture an environment of continuous improvement through effective service quality assessment.

Evaluation of Library and Information Services

Evaluation of Library and Information Services
Author: John Crawford
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 133
Release: 2003-09-02
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 1135476578

Provides update to current thinking about, and reasons for, service evaluation of libraries in the UK. Examines quantitative and qualitative methods including questionnaires, focus groups, suggestions boxes and interview techniques.Problems arising from survey outcomes are summarised and long-term evaluation and the relevance of benchmarking are discussed.Contains case studies covering survey work in public, academic and special libraries; charters and service level agreements; and examples of relevant research projects.New chapter on performance measurement in the electronic library.

Library Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness

Library Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness
Author: Ernest R. DeProspo
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 192
Release: 1990
Genre: Education
ISBN:

This volume is the most comprehensive compilation of ideas related to library performance yet assembled. It brings together noted researchers and successful library directors and educators who have extended the landmark findings and efforts of their mentor and friend, Ernest DeProsp. The editors give a historical account of contemporary measurement activities; suggest methodologies for measuring performance; offer viewpoints on planning, goal-setting and validity; and comment on problems associated with planning, one of the major tools of measurement. Readers of the book will develop informed opinions about planning, a practice that when entered into unaware can enslave an organization in endless data gathering routines and tax their endurance beyond reasonable points. Thought-provoking comments on the directions taken, and not taken, by library thinkers challenge the reader to speculate about current library-think.

The Evaluation and Measurement of Library Services

The Evaluation and Measurement of Library Services
Author: Joseph R. Matthews
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 481
Release: 2017-10-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1440855374

This guide provides library directors, managers, and administrators in all types of libraries with complete and up-to-date instructions on how to evaluate library services in order to improve them. It's a fact: today's libraries must evaluate their services in order to find ways to better serve patrons and prove their value to their communities. In this greatly updated and expanded edition of Matthews' seminal text, you'll discover a breadth of tools that can be used to evaluate any library service, including newer tools designed to measure customer and patron outcomes. The book offers practical advice backed by solid research on virtually every aspect of evaluation, including quantitative and qualitative tools, data analysis, and specific recommendations for measuring individual services, such as technical services and reference and interlibrary loan. New chapters give readers effective ways to evaluate critical aspects of their libraries such as automated systems, physical space, staff, performance management frameworks, eBooks, social media, and information literacy. The author explains how broader and more robust adoption of evaluation techniques will help library managers combine traditional internal measurements, such as circulation and reference transactions, with more customer-centric metrics that reflect how well patrons feel they are served and how satisfied they are with the library. By applying this comprehensive strategy, readers will gain the ability to form a truer picture of their library's value to its stakeholders and patrons.

L. E. A3. D. Ing Your Library

L. E. A3. D. Ing Your Library
Author: Larry Nash White
Publisher: Greenwood
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1933-03-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9781591586821

Libraries have gone from serving communities to serving the world. Where our customers [once came] to the library to use our services, we [must] now take it to where they are. The L.E.A3.D. ( Learning, Entrepreneurial, Access/ Accountability/Alignment, and Demonstration) model is designed to help libraries learn more about the competitive service environment in which they find themselves, as well the the role they must play in order to develop proactive responses that will generate greater community impact and participation. L.E.A3.D. is practical, based on real world experience and scalable to any size or type of library. Of particular interest, and crucial importance, to library administrators and stakeholders alike.