Joseph R. Matthews - Böcker

Everyone agrees that evaluation of library services is essential, but without a background in research it can be a challenge to apply abstract concepts such as strategic planning, evidence-based decision making, and accountability to real-world situations. Finally library managers have a workbook to help them master key concepts of service quality assessment, offering directed exercises and worksheets to guide them. Firmly rooted in practical application, this book Presents an overview of evaluation and the types of metrics, linking them to strategic planning and infrastructure Examines qualitative versus quantitative measures Shows how to decide which metrics are relevant to one’s own institution, covering benchmarking, best practices, peer group filters, and those metrics that offer a high return on investment Includes pointers for launching and maintaining successful library evaluation through flexibility and smart delegation among library staff Offers advice on marshalling data to effectively communicate the value and impact of a library and its services, no matter the audience Complete with a detailed list of sources for metrics and concrete examples of evaluation in practice, this workbook will be both valuable and immediately useful to managers at academic and public libraries, as well as to library trustees and others interested in assessing service quality.

Both the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Public Library Association (PLA) provide important data services. For library managers and administrators, the key to the data s usefulness is knowing how to extract and apply the most relevant information to managing a library and improving accountability. A companion volume to the authors earlier book Getting Started with Evaluation, this guide illustrates how to use the data to support value, collection use, benchmarking, and other best practices. This important resourceIdentifies key metrics in ACRLMetrics and PLAmetricsDemonstrates how to perform techniques for developing and using metricsOffers exercises that illustrate how to produce meaningful metrics and reports, accessible via a free web portalShows how to move towards outcomes assessments while simultaneously embracing valueIncludes numerous examples to guide readers through the data services web interfaces screen-by-screenManagers at academic and public libraries, administrators, and library trustees will find this book a vital tool for accountability and advocacy.

This book explains the concept of adding value and shows staff at libraries and other organizations why they need to take steps now to ensure they are adding new value to their communities—whether it be a local town or neighborhood, a faculty and student body, or a school.Value is at the core of every organization's purpose. Without value, organizations die. Libraries—as well as museums, archives, and galleries—have traditionally added value to their communities through their collections and services, but yesterday's collections and services are no longer enough. In order to remain sustainable, today's libraries, archives, museums, and galleries must explore new ways to add value that resonate in the lives of their customers.This unique book explains how addressing the "5 C's" of adding value—content, context, connection, collaboration, and community—enables organizations to find new ways to invigorate their services, better serve their communities, and thrive today and tomorrow. It addresses adding value in the context of other key topics, such as crowdsourcing, embedded librarianship, makerspaces, self publishing, and repurposing spaces. Filled with charts, tables, screenshots, and other visual representation, this is a useful and provocative guide that anyone interested in vesting in the successful future of libraries, archives, and museums needs to read.

Information systems are central to libraries, and managing information systems is critical to serving library communities. Both a textbook for LIS courses and a handbook for practitioners, this volume thoroughly addresses modern libraries' challenges of integrating information technology.Written by Joseph R. Matthews and Carson Block, both experts on library information systems, this book describes the evolution of library information systems, their enabling technologies, and today's dynamic IT marketplace. It explains specific technologies and related topics, including standards and standards organizations, telecommunications and networks, integrated library systems, electronic resource management systems, repositories, authentication and link verification, electronic resources, and nextgen library systems.Readers will also learn the latest about information systems management, covering technology planning, basic technology axioms, the impact of technology on library services, system selection and implementation, system usability, and general technology management. The final section considers current trends and future developments in LIS, including those related to mobile devices and apps as well as the growth of digital libraries.

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.

Facing budget and personnel cuts, special librarians increasingly need to justify the cost of library operations—often even the library's existence. Expert Joseph Matthews illustrates how to evaluate library services and successfully communicate the library's value to upper management.Describing how value is added and how it can best be measured, Matthews explains different types of evaluations (models, implications, and methods) and a variety of measures (input, process, and output). He shows how a cost-benefit analysis and a library balanced scorecard, along with effective communication, can position the library as a value center rather than a cost center. A glossary, list of recommended reading, and an appendix (including a library benefits survey and a table of measures with respective definitions) make this the ultimate means of establishing the value of your library—an essential guide no special librarian should be without!

Librarians have historically relied on the perceived value or goodness of the public library as a means to garner financial support. Yet it is now becoming apparent that public libraries must demonstrate, using an acceptable methodology, the economic value of the library and its services. A compendium of valuable information about the research and literature surrounding this issue of demonstration, this book reviews the various approaches that have been used in assessing the public library's value.Matthews suggests methods for a library to develop better means of communicating with their funding decision-makers and other stakeholders. By analyzing input, process, and output measures, and combining these with measures of the economic and social benefits produced by the library, he offers a portfolio of approaches that enable today's librarian to both measure effectiveness and to communicate its value to its stakeholders—the communities it serves.

Libraries enter into strategic planning by a variety of routes, from dynamic technology and rising costs to budget cuts and pressure for change. In this book, Joe Matthews guides library managers towards a greater understanding of the role and attendant responsibilities of strategic planning. Academic, public, and special librarians alike will benefit from Matthews' cogent explanations, real-life examples, and time-tested recommendations.In the process, Matthews addresses such intrinsic questions as: Why is it important that I add strategic thinking to my managerial arsenal? How will strategic planning benefit my library, and is there more than one way to go about it? What is the best way of monitoring and updating our strategic plan for maximum effect? In each case, he debunks false impressions, attends to the goal of providing good service, and identifies at least one new way to communicate the library's strategic importance in the lives of its customers. Academic, public, and special librarians alike will benefit from Matthews' cogent explanations, real-life examples, and time-tested recommendations.

Baseball fans have long appreciated the value of keeping a scorecard, both as a record of the game and a predictor of future outcomes. What if we told you the same principle works for libraries? The Balanced Scorecard is a performance measurement tool first popularized by Robert Kaplan and David Norton (who also penned the foreword to this book) in a 1993 Harvard Business Review article. It involves matching a variety of measures with one or more expected values—from each of four perspectives (financial, customer, internal process, and organizational readiness)—tracking results, and analyzing any variance between them. As in baseball, organizations come away with both a snapshot of the present and a sense of where they are headed.Evaluation expert Joe Matthews has taken this basic model and, in six carefully illustrated steps, shows how any public library, regardless of size, can more effectively focus its resources, assess strategic impact, and in so doing better serve its community.

A top library consultant offers specific recommendations for helping libraries adapt to their changing role in the community.What is the future of the public library? How can libraries embrace the forces of change and provide the resources—and the resource-gathering environment—today’s patrons want? The Customer-Focused Library: Re-Inventing the Library From the Outside-In answers these questions by proposing a transformative alternative, a reimagined library in which the collections, the services—even the building itself—are designed and built from the customer’s perspective.Written by one of the country’s foremost library consultants, The Customer-Focused Library shows how perceived threats to the traditional library model are in fact exciting opportunities for change. The book lays out the steps by which professionals and patrons together can help invent a new generation of libraries, with discussions of hiring guidelines, merchandizing, the library website, even the building plan itself. It is a proactive, consumer-based approach aimed at helping librarians focus on underexamined ideas, underexploited trends, underused assets, and the as-yet unvoiced needs of library consumers.Illustrations and drawings of innovative library buildings and featuresA bibliography of additional print and online resourcesA complete index

A thorough explanation of how a voice-of-the-customer program for libraries can give customers the opportunity to make their opinions known, enabling libraries to develop services that meet or exceed their patrons' changing expectations.A modern library is much like a business in that it must provide a set of products and services to meet the changing needs and expectations of its customers in order to succeed and survive. With libraries now focusing more on their "customers," Listening to the Customer is a critical resource that provides effective strategies for gathering information from the client perspective in order to meet library patrons' expectations and specific information needs.The voice-of-the-customer program described by Hernon and Matthews involves not only listening to customers, but also maintaining an ongoing dialogue with them. The book addresses different types of customers, assorted methods for gathering evidence, data reporting to stakeholders, and relevant metrics for libraries to report. The authors also devote a chapter to regaining lost customers and discuss leadership techniques and preparation steps to meet an uncertain future. Completely unique in its methodological focus, this book is one of very few titles to address the importance of library customer service in the 21st century.

This book will help public library administrators, managers, and board members to better plan, strategize, and understand their communities, enabling public libraries to become dynamic, proactive institutions.Research-Based Planning for Public Libraries: Increasing Relevance in the Digital Age takes readers through a logical and effective process for developing a plan and implementing it within the various functions of the library. Grounded in research and best practices, the book offers practical, easy-to-implement advice and direction for today's public library administrators, managers, and board members. Covering everything from goal-setting, policy-making, and budgeting, to collections, promotions, and access and evaluation, the book details how to better provide and promote access, convey its value to customers, and make the library a more integral part of the community. The author inspires library staff and administrators to reinvent themselves to meet—and overcome—the current challenges they face. The information is specifically tailored towards public librarians, particularly those in management or administration, as well as to LIS faculty and students of public librarianship and library management.