If You Want to Evaluate Your Library ... (2nd ed.)

If You Want to Evaluate Your Library...(2nd ed.)

F.W. Lancaster, Library Association, London, 1993, 376 pp., ISBN 1-85604-083-6, L35 (LA members L28)

This book deals with a subject that no library manager can afford to avoid. Performance evaluation and service measurement is an essential management activity which, if conducted effectively, can help to shape the future relevance of library and information services. Some years ago, librarians could perhaps have survived on the reactive management of collections and services. Today, in a climate of restricted resources and the conflicting demands of collection development and the need to implement new services using new technology and new methods of information service delivery, planning is a major preoccupation and it has become necessary to measure performance continuously in order to determine the effects of the ways in which resources are deployed.

This...