John B. Harer

LibQual+TM in Lilliput: assessment benefits for small academic libraries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe how small, academic libraries may realize significant benefits from employing LibQual+TM as an assessment of customer needs and expectations, stressing that these benefits may vary by the actual size of the institution.Design/methodology/approach – Catawba College compared its experience utilizing LibQual+TM with that of Washburn University, reported by Dole as a small, academic library application of the survey. Catawba College is a private, liberal arts college that is much smaller than Washburn, with one‐quarter the student body and faculty. This paper examines the assessment experience of the two small institutions and compares the different advantages and disadvantages of using LibQual+TM within these two different types of small, academic institutions.Findings – The study found that a larger response rate was realized than that of the larger of the two institutions, especially by faculty, and suggests that this is due to the nature of the small coll...

The Economic Crisis and the Decline of the Academic Librarian Professional

Librarianship is a professional career, with all that that implies. By definition, a profession is primarily one that is founded on specialized educational training, and the tenet that professionals put the interests of clients or patrons above their own interests. The purpose of the profession of librarianship is serving the information needs of society. Some of this profession’s greatest innovations are the result of this commitment to professionalism. Examples include the OCLC system, a system of shared cataloging, and interlibrary loan, providing virtually free borrowing of resources to institutions that did not contribute to the costs of ownership of those materials. It is doubtful that the for-profit sector would produce such innovations purely for the purpose of professional service. Challenges are faced from a variety of directions that threaten to aid the decline of academic library professional. One of these challenges is the impact of emerging technological innovations, especially the Internet. Van House and Sutton (2000) argue, “The LIS profession’s focus on libraries has been challenged by a fundamental shift from the Ptolemaic information universe with the library at its center, to a dynamic Copernican universe with information at its center and libraries playing a significant, but not necessarily central, role” (55). But, that is not the subject of this editorial. In 2011, an even greater challenge is the impact on jobs caused by the current economic crisis. This crisis is so severe that libraries are on a financial roller coaster, riding in the front car, eyes wide open, holding tight onto the handle bar, as they

The Prevalence of Quality Management System Options in United States Academic Libraries

This article examines the different types of quality management systems and extent to which academic libraries in the United States have implemented these approaches. This discussion is based on a preliminary study that supports a larger research agenda on adaptation of ISO 9000 standards for quality assurance in technical services. Various forms of quality management systems and approaches are described, such as quality control, Total Quality Management, Continuous Quality Improvement, ISO 9000, and the Balanced Scorecard. The results of two preliminary data sets, (1) a record of the literature on these quality management systems and (2) a brief survey of technical services directors of academic libraries that are members of the Association of Research Libraries, are presented and discussed.

Revisiting “Information Delivery in the Evolving Electronic Library”: The Information Cycle Network (ICN) Then and Now

In 1992, the “electronic library” was beginning to entice researchers into the sense that the delivery of information resources could be vastly improved by the ongoing technological innovations of full-text formats and the emergence of the Internet. However, the more common experience for delivery of information resources was a frustrating process tied significantly to print resources owned by individual libraries. This paper takes a look back at this discussion and compares the current reality in the delivery of information resources to what was envisioned and hoped for in the “electronic library” in 1992. It argues that great strides have been made in improving easy and effective delivery of information resources in, primarily, electronic form, but the hybrid nature of libraries today still dictate a need for much of the same attention to delivery of print resources as there was in 1992.

Finding the ILL Load Balance: Quality and Quantity in the 1990's

The general recognition of the mutual benefit to be obtained by acess to the collections of other libraries provides the basis for reciprocity among libraries in sharing their resources. The benefit to be gained has led to accommodation of ILL among libraries as a routine matter. The appropriateness and necessity of resource sharing is not an issue here, but the issue of proportionate benefit is