Practical Experience of Performance Measurement at the State Library of New South Wales

Schmidt, Janine

doi:10.1080/00048623.1990.10754679

Cited by 3 publications

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“…Among the important issues that the performance evaluation exercise should focus on is assessing the appropriateness of the different activities to find out whether there is a need for each activity in the first place (Schmidt 1990). This is a very common problem in library and information Systems of these countries.…”

Section: Conclusion and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Evaluation in Library and Information Systems of Developing Countries: A Study of the Literature

Kebede¹

1999

Libri

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Based largely on a study of the literature, this article outlines the nature and purposes of performance evaluation in library and Information Systems in general. It further delineates the Information scenario of developing countries and pinpoints the specific issues that performance evaluätion could address in the library and Information Systems of these countries. It then raises the challenges that the library and Information Systems of developing countries face in conducting performance evaluätion to achieve the expected benefits from it. The article identifies the following stumbling blocks: lack of awareness, cost of conducting the evaluation, shortage of staff and lack of methods and tools to employ for the purpose. Methodological problems are identified äs important. It concludes that the library and Information Systems in these countries have to develpp their own methods and tools appropriate to their needs and relevant to their environment. It further discusses key issues in the development of the required framework such äs assessing the environment and identifying what is important from the point of view of the System for the evaluätion effort to focus on. The means of generating data usable for performance assessment and training äs a means of improving the staff shortage and absence of awareness of the role of performance evaluätion to address among the other challenges.

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Section: Conclusion and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Evaluation in Library and Information Systems of Developing Countries: A Study of the Literature

Kebede¹

1999

Libri

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“…The State Librarian, Alison Crook, has reported on some of them and the authors of this paper, as observers of changes in that library, have been struck by the creative use of marketing techniques and criteria not only in adjusting to but in taking advantage of the times and prevailing attitudes.3 2 The State Library of New South Wales has, moreover, provided a detailed report on how the evaluation of its programs for binding and serials was carried out. 33 The Sydney Technical College Library is another which has made creative use of a marketing plan to measure the quality and value of its services to its clients and to assist its strategic planning. 34 The marketing perspective provides a helpful framework in which to consider the management of library performance because it focusses attention on the clients, and on the exchange relationships with them as the purposes for which the library exists.…”

Section: Performance Measurement In Australian Librariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Measures for Libraries: Statistical, Organizational and Cosmetic

Maguire

Willard

1990

Australian Academic & Research Libraries

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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...

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At Your Service: Evaluation of an Information Desk Program

Novak

Lidstone

1991

Australian Academic & Research Libraries

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Practical Experience of Performance Measurement at the State Library of New South Wales

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Performance Evaluation in Library and Information Systems of Developing Countries: A Study of the Literature

Performance Evaluation in Library and Information Systems of Developing Countries: A Study of the Literature

Performance Measures for Libraries: Statistical, Organizational and Cosmetic

At Your Service: Evaluation of an Information Desk Program

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