This article summarizes the attempts to define and measure quality and effectiveness in academic libraries, from traditional evaluative studies to Total Quality Management (TQM) and new research on user-defined criteria. Focusing on the organizational analysis of the library as a whole and the contribution it makes to the university or college, the article outlines a number of fundamental concepts and tools common to models of evaluation. Particular attention is then given to assessment in higher education as a whole and ways in which determinants of library quality must be linked to educational outcomes. The concluding sections suggest several areas for future research and for collaboration among library managers, educational administrators, scholars, and measurement theorists.

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/8041/librarytrendsv44i3h_opt.pdf

Determining quality in academic libraries

Over the past twenty years, academic collection development specialists have dealt with dramatic changes, brought about by decreasing purchasing power and the growing importance of electronic resources. Throughout this period, collection managers have rethought their efforts and revised criteria for the selection of materials in new formats while also maintaining traditional collections. Looking back over this period may help provide perspective for dealing with the next stages of change.

Electronic Resources and Academic Libraries, 1980-2000: A Historical Perspective.

THEPOST-HIERARCHICAL LIBRARY IS A flattened organization, unlimited by the traditional hierarchy, antibureaucratic, with empowered cross-functional teams, fewer people, constant learning, and redefined and re-engineered work processes focused on customer service. The purpose of the post-hierarchical library is to increase user satisfaction with reduced resources and more staff empowerment. It is being propelled by rising user service demands, increasing costs, new technologies, and internal and commercial competition. The post-hierarchical library leader is a planner, coordinator, motivator, negotiator, innovator, communicator, listener, recruiter, risk taker, problem solver, and evaluator. The leader’s responsibilities include adopting and exemplifying a user satisfaction mind set, defining and articulating the mission and strategic plan, creating a supporting technology and knowledge-sharing infrastructure, and fostering relationships and teams. The significant impediments to the development of the post-hierarchical library are the inertia of the parent institution, the leader, the staff, and the motivation for change.

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/7941/librarytrendsv43i1f_opt.pdf?sequence=1

Leadership in the Post-Hierarchical Library

The institutional roles of libraries evolved from that of local resource repositories to global gateways for access by the new millennium. Twenty-first century library users demand access to electronic materials. Library school students and employers articulate expectations for entry-level cataloger positions that include understandings and familiarities with a theoretical basis for cataloging e-resources. Therefore, entry-level catalog librarian position announcements provide insight into requirements regarding graduate education, expertise, and preferred preparations for these positions. This empirical research study explores 266 entry-level cataloger position announcements published during a five-year period in order to determine the importance of cataloging e-resources as articulated by employers. A rigorous content analysis methodology enabled the researcher to identify employers' expectations and requirements among public, special, and academic libraries. Recommendations include the expansion of cataloging courses, addition of metadata schema to LIS course offerings, and the need for increased numbers of faculty teaching in these areas. Introduction Much of the future relevance for libraries will be derived from the services they provide, especially those functions of identifying, organizing, and providing access to information resources with no distinction made regarding ownership or delivery method.1 During the closing decades of the last century, the institutional roles of libraries evolved from that of local resource repositories to global gateways for access.2 In her discussion of the continual change and updating of electronic resources (e-resources) and their impact on libraries, Younger states that "there is no escaping the fact that technology has moved us into a transition from a print-based world to an era in which scholarly discourse will be conducted largely within a globally networked electronic environment."3 Consequently, library users challenge librarians to provide immediate access from anywhere.4 To meet these challenges, Atkinson encouraged librarians to study the changing needs of the academic community and to design services that will meet those needs more effectively than services offered by other agencies inside or outside of academe.5 The symbiotic relationships among reference, acquisitions, and cataloging functions establish a foundation and foster an inevitable fusion of these operations. Librarians have had to rethink assumptions about which materials to hold locally, new resource sharing relationships, consortial partnerships and document delivery packages from commercial sources.6 Twenty-first century library users demand access to electronic materials. They use computers to search and receive information, create documents, and communicate with others. Libraries are increasingly spending collection development funds for current online access in lieu of purchasing print materials.7 In addition, librarians handle manifestations in an increasing array of physical formats, depend on adynamic diversity among technologies to access materials, and face the implications of providing information support in an environment in which physical remoteness becomes the rule rather than the exception.8 Expanding access beyond the resources in local and regional collections to libraries worldwide have presented significant and unique issues to librarians. E-resources have already overtaken print resources in their importance to research library collections. Scholars want broad access to digitally reformatted materials and use and prefer information that can be accessed from desktops, especially finding aids, catalogs, abstract and indexing services, and online journals. Gray literature is available with a few keystrokes.9 Librarians have to determine how best to provide access, incorporating e-resources (particularly e-journals) into traditional collection development policies and determining how electronic materials should be indexed and cataloged. …

Cataloging electronic resources and metadata : Employers' expectations as reflected in American libraries and AutoCAT, 2000-2005

During the last quarter of the twentieth century, the literature of academic librarianship was replete with articles predicting, anticipating, speculating, or cautioning about future possibilities for the field. The seminal works of F. W. Lancaster, who was one of the early predictors and enthusiasts of "paperless information systems," are the key points of departure for this literature. This article (which covers the period of time from roughly 1975 to 1989), as well as its second part (1990 to 1999), employs a citation-tracking method for gathering and reviewing this literature. Each work discussed in this article cites either Lancaster's work, or another work that cites it, so that the resulting literature review has grown from a common source of thought. The aim is to provide an analytical overview on how academic librarians saw and attempted to shape the future of their field during a period of unprecedented change.

A Brief History of the Future of Academic Libraries: Predictions and Speculations from the Literature of the Profession, 1975 to 2000--part two, 1990 to 2000

Richard M. Dougherty

Papers

The Academic Library: A Time of Crisis, Change, and Opportunity

A Conceptual Framework for Organizing Resource Sharing and Shared Collection Development Programs.

The Role of Continuing Education and Training in Human Resource Development: An Administrator's Viewpoint.

Being successful (nimble and agile) in the current turbulent environment

Reflections on 25 years of JAL and academic libraries