Performance measurement for libraries and librarians is not new. Today public sector accountability gives added impetus. This paper distinguishes the criteria for measurement of library performance from criteria for the measures themselves, building upon the theoretical models for performance proposed by Orr and Buckland. Tbe issues surrounding performance measurement are explored, especially the importance of political factors. Tbe particular pressures operating on Australian libraries are outlined along with the reactions of some libraries to them. Knowledge and action are urged upon librarians. In particular it is suggested that those responsible for overall provision of library and information services at administrative, executive and parliamentary levels in Australia should have the maintenance and enhancement of these services among the criteria on which their performance is judged. The paper was delivered at the first biennial conference of the Australian Library and Information Association, Perth, October, 1990.
IntroductionThe evaluation of library performance is not a new idea, and the appraisal of librarians' performance did not arrive as part of the economic rationalism of the last quarter of this century. The shades of Antonio Panizzi and H C L Anderson will attest to this. A Royal Commission was appointed in 1850, officially to 'Inquire into the Constitution and Government of the British Museum'; unofficially it was a trial of Panizzi's librarianship 1 • In 1900 Anderson faced an inquiry into his running of the Public Library of New South Wales by a committee of the Lower House of the State Parliament. Both librarians came out of the inquiries very well and both had previously been subject to a period of public vilification, the like of which no latter day Australian librarian has had to endure. The authors of this paper believe that lack of criticism of performance, while doubtless less stressful for librarians, is not necessarily good for the well-being of libraries and their clients. Perhaps the increased pressure for the measurement of library performance at the end of the twentieth century is a good sign that libraries are social institutions no less important than they were in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.At least today there are in the professional literature mountains of advice, molehills of empirical data and occasional peaks of theoretical wisdom on performance measures for libraries which may prove of practical use to librarians. This paper argues that there is much good theoretical and practical work on which to draw and that some useful measures of quality and value have been constructed. At the same time there is evidence to suggest that no arm of the profession has the performance measurement challenge under control. The output of articles and monographs on performance measurement shows no sign of abating. Indeed, Goodall remarks that 'Indeed there seems to have been more review work done on this subject than new work' . 2 Specifications of the qualities which performa...