Quality Management in Libraries
A British Library Funded Project
NOTE: This project was completed while the Centre for Research in Library and Information Management (CERLIM) was based at the University of Central Lancashire during 1993-98. On 1 April 1998, CERLIM moved to a new base at Manchester Metropolitan University.
This page summarises the work carried out for the British Library Research & Innovation Centre (formerly known as the British Library Research and Development Department) funded project 'Quality Management in Libraries', which was undertaken at CERLIM between April 1994 and June 1995.
Objectives
(a) To provide a conceptual framework for the adoption of quality management by library and information services (LIS).
(b) To interpret the major quality management approaches being adopted by libraries and information services in generic terms, so as to facilitate the selection of appropriate quality management systems and techniques, and their implementation by libraries.
(c) To explore the relationship between quality management and library performance measurement.
A relatively short and focused project was proposed to address the issues outlined above. In particular:
(a) In order to develop a generalised guide to quality management concepts as they apply to LIS and a framework for their adoption, it is necessary to analyse the major quality management approaches, to relate these approaches to service industries in general and to LIS in particular, and to map the terminology of quality management onto the terminology of library management. [An almost trivial example may make this clear: under the BS5750 quality management system it is necessary to have a procedure for "non-conforming products": it is not obvious that in library terms a "non-conforming product" includes a user with an overdue book!]
(b) The key concept of quality management is customer satisfaction: the same concept (if political considerations are stripped away) lies behind customer, students' or citizens' charters. In the LIS sector much work has been done on performance measurement and standards, often with an explicitly user-centred focus. What is unclear is the way in which such work maps onto the equally user-centred focus of quality management. Again a mapping exercise is needed to take the explicit statements of LIS performance measurement and demonstrate how they relate to the concepts of quality management.
(c) Case studies are needed to "ground" these conceptual frameworks in the practical application of quality management techniques. Although they are not numerous there are sufficient examples in the academic, public and special library sectors to enable a useful input to be made from practice. Methodology and Programme of Work
The work was carried out by:
1. Desk Research to identify and analyse the quality management and relevant library literature and to identify practitioners whose quality management implementations merit detailed attention;
2. Interviews with bodies responsible for quality management systems and with LIS managers who have taken initiatives in this field. Particular attention will be apid to the different ways in which quality management is being implemented in different sectors;
3. Analysis of the results of the above work to produce the quality management "map";
4. A conference, at the end of the Project, to assist in the dissemination of the results and in the identification of further research in the application of quality management to LIS.
The subject of quality management is one of the priority research themes adopted by CERLIM in its research plan. See also: EQLIPSE - Evaluation and Quality in Library Performance: System for Europe
For details of project activities and reports, please contact:
Professor Peter Brophy
Centre for Research in Library and Information Management (CERLIM)
Manchester Metropolitan University
Department of Information and Communications
Geoffrey Manton Building
Rosamond Street West
Manchester
M15 6LL
Tel: +44 (0)161 247 6142
Fax:+44 (0)161 247 6979
p.brophy@mmu.ac.uk
cerlim@mmu.ac.uk