Benchmarking Library, Information and Education Services

Because of the current global turbulence, individuals, leaders, and whole institutions are keen to learn more about what is happening and how they can develop sustainable solutions to both immediate challenges and longer-term scenarios. People are looking for inspiration. This book provides it through the theme of Qualitative Benchmarking (QB), a practical tool for sharing expertise and enhancing the effectiveness of organizations, services, or teams. The centrepiece of the book is a description, report, and analysis of a major international QB exercise, culminating in a set of good practice statements. A series of surrounding chapters provide international sector-leading insights through the application of QB in different contexts. These include an analysis of third sector organizations, e-libraries, marketing information services, vocational training in higher education, the creative arts, and the role of partnerships in organizational openness. Benchmarking Library, Information and Education Services will help leaders and managers to make good strategic choices for the future. It will provide a practical tool for sharing expertise and enhancing the effectiveness of library and information organizations, services, or teams through an international base of experience and innovation, learning from others what works and does not work, especially in the digital world in which we operate. It will help to provide the foundations of ongoing research in the development of collections and services. It contributes to practical outputs of general benefit to the sector including customers, clients, or stakeholders, offering ideas for how to identify comparative strengths and weaknesses and to improve or enhance present practices, regardless of how well institutions currently perform: even the best organizations can still find areas in which to improve. The benefits of the QB methodology are applicable to individual institutions and across broader partnerships or consortia within the public sector, including beyond libraries and educational institutions. The key benefits are: summation and understanding of institutional responses, creation of sustainable long-term strategies, identification of key practical approaches to future provision, information on current and future good practice, collective ways of learning lessons for forward planning, a framework for the evaluation of systems and services and improved effectiveness through shared development. Qualitative Benchmarking – what is it? The opportunity to understand the experiences of others and to compare my own experience; to learn and to adapt my own practice. What does this experience mean and how does it help me to re-think and question my own and my organization’s professional identity, value, and purpose? What is the future of library, education, and public services more broadly, whether in a physical or a digital space?