Home | Performance Measures and 
Evaluative Tools (Summary)
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SUMMARY

SCOPE
This guideline covers the following topics: public library statistics, public library performance measures, new statistical measures and other tools for evaluating electronic services, benchmarking [metric and process], measures of value and impact, standardised questionnaires and standards.

POLICY ISSUES
The key questions driving the agenda for the measurement of the performance of libraries internationally are:

What are public libraries for?

• Who controls the public library agenda? Is it a national, regional or local matter? 

• Should public libraries be a broad service, catering for the whole community, or do they need to sharpen their marketing to demonstrate their value to and impact on specific client groups?

• Modernisation brings in issues concerning the Internet and electronic information and links the public library agenda to such issues as e-government, social inclusion, freedom of information, employment, education and economic well-being.

What is a good public library and how much should it cost?

• If a good public library now is different from the previous concept of a good public library, then new measures are called for. The development of Internet-based services makes this inevitable.

• If there is increased competition for public funds, so public libraries need arguments to win their share or to defend what they already spend. Sometimes the argument is purely political. Usually it is evidence-based, which is where performance indicators come in. 

GOOD PRACTICE GUIDELINES
External observers are often surprised by the amount of work which has been done to develop performance indicators for libraries - there are even official International Standards on the subject. A large collection of library-related statistics is maintained by LibEcon. 

Public libraries in Europe mostly have good statistics but issues include:

• Timeliness - they are often published “late”.

• Completeness - they may not be grossed up, making time trends impossible.

• International standardisation - they may not respect international standard definitions.

• Presentation and access - they may be poorly presented and hard to find.

• Fitness for purpose - they may not cover topics needed by stakeholders.

FUTURE AGENDA
Measuring impact - a crucial yet extremely complex area of work. Identifying the contribution that libraries make is not easy, but early indicators show that significant impacts are made on core policy areas such as social inclusion. Work is therefore under way in a number of European countries to find reliable ways of assessing impacts.

Assessing new IT-based services. Traditional performance indicators, such as books issued per member of the population, need to be supplemented by measures related to IT-based services. A particular issue is that many such services are delivered outside the library building - for example to PCs in the home.

Home | Performance Measures and 
Evaluative Tools (Summary)
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