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Benchmarking on a national scale: the 2007 LibQUAL+ ® Canada experience

Benchmarking on a national scale: the 2007 LibQUAL+ ® Canada experience Purpose – In 2006/2007, the Canadian academic library community came together in the largest national LibQUAL+ ® consortium to conduct ARL library service quality survey. This paper aims to address how and why the national consortial project came about, the challenges for recruiting and managing participants, and what was learnt, together with possible future directions. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a case study approach. Findings – The research touches on the challenges planning and implementing LibQUAL+ ® with such a large, diverse consortium, with its bilingual mandate and multiple library types, and what made the project successful and its limitations. Practical implications – The most apparent accomplishment of this project was successful collection of a large, diverse data set for comparative analysis of services and facilities – a meaningful data set both for individual libraries seeking appropriate Canadian comparators and for analyses by region, institutional categories, etc. Originality/value – A valuable result of the project was to engage more Canadian academic libraries in the process of service assessment. CARL's bi‐lingual consortium approach will provide a valuable example for other national organisations attempting to carry out similar projects. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Performance Measurement and Metrics Emerald Publishing

Benchmarking on a national scale: the 2007 LibQUAL+ ® Canada experience

Sam Kalb
Performance Measurement and Metrics , Volume 11 (2): 11 – Jul 6, 2010
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Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
1467-8047
DOI
10.1108/14678041011064070
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – In 2006/2007, the Canadian academic library community came together in the largest national LibQUAL+ ® consortium to conduct ARL library service quality survey. This paper aims to address how and why the national consortial project came about, the challenges for recruiting and managing participants, and what was learnt, together with possible future directions. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a case study approach. Findings – The research touches on the challenges planning and implementing LibQUAL+ ® with such a large, diverse consortium, with its bilingual mandate and multiple library types, and what made the project successful and its limitations. Practical implications – The most apparent accomplishment of this project was successful collection of a large, diverse data set for comparative analysis of services and facilities – a meaningful data set both for individual libraries seeking appropriate Canadian comparators and for analyses by region, institutional categories, etc. Originality/value – A valuable result of the project was to engage more Canadian academic libraries in the process of service assessment. CARL's bi‐lingual consortium approach will provide a valuable example for other national organisations attempting to carry out similar projects.

Journal

Performance Measurement and Metrics – Emerald Publishing

Published: Jul 6, 2010

Keywords: Benchmarking; Surveys; Academic libraries; Research ;ibraries; Project management; Canada

References

  • LibQUAL+ ® Update
    Association of Research Libraries (ARL)