Accountable and fit for purpose:

1
Accountable and fit for purpose

• towards consensus on
• Academic Library Quality
• in South Africa
• Karin de Jager
• University of Cape Town

2
Roadmap

• Early initiatives
• Quality assurance
• Demands for evidence
• Accountability responsiveness
• Chart the progress

3
Early days

• Some data submitted to SAPSE
• Libraries small part of the collection
• Basic data only
• Costs
• Stock
• Acquisitions
• Space
• Circulation

4
Of limited use

• not particularly suitable for calculating
  performance indicators yet
• Circulation per FTE
• Turnover holdings/circulation
• Cost-effectiveness
• Cost per use
• Cost per user

5
Inter-University Library Committee (IULC)

• 1995 1st Northumbria Conference
• Wanted a common set of indicators
• Toolbox developed
• User satisfaction
• Library expenditure per FTE
• Integration
• Annual circulation per FTE

6
Experiments

• User surveys (Van House)
• Availability studies
• Ratios calculated from SAPSE
• Impetus soon faded
• Reconfiguration of HE landscape
• Sharp fall in value of currency
• Major political changes in SA

7
System changes

• SAPSE obsolete
• Replaced by HEMIS
• Data on students staff only
• No central collection of library-related data in
  the HE sector

8
More changes

• Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC)
• Mandated National institutional Quality Audits
• Evidence based
• Libraries also have to demonstrate quality
  impact of their services on institutional
  teaching research

9
New bodies

• Technikons into universities
• Some mergers
• IULC disbanded also
• Council for Technikon Librarians
• Established Committee for Higher Education
  Librarians in South Africa (CHELSA) 2004

10
CHELSA response to HEQC

• Established Quality Assurance Subcommittee
• To assist libraries with Quality Audits
• Undertook two tasks
• To compile an agreed set of mutually agreed
  performance measures
• To develop guidelines for QA portfolios
• Data prerequisite for effective QA

11
Measuring for Quality

• Basket of basic measures collected from ARL, CAUL
  SCONUL
• Circulated for comment
• Workshop May 2005
• Importance of standardising data collection
• Sharing data for benchmarking

12
The Measures

• Provision of Stock
• Annual Additions to Stock
• Subscriptions to Electronic and Continuing
  Resources
• Study Places/Facilities
• Number of Libraries
• Hours Open per Year
• Clientele
• Library Staff
• Use of Library Services
• Expenditure

13
Quality measures??

• HEQC Wide differences in understanding
• Own measures required
• Measures alone do not indicate quality
• Quality Institutions benchmark, quantify assess
  activities services
• Next step the database

14
Guidelines for Quality Audits

• Key objectives of QA in HE Libraries
• integration with goals objectives
• extent to which goals objectives are achieved
• that the library is run efficiently effectively
• impact of library services on learning, teaching
  research

15
HEQC Criteria for Institutional Audits

• Only Criterion 4 mentions libraries
• Academic support services (e.g. library and
  learning materials, computer support services,
  etc.) adequately support teaching and learning
  needs, and help give effect to teaching and
  learning objectives

16
Three examples of HEQC requirements spelled out

• Academic support services which adequately
  provide for the needs of teaching and learning,
  research and community engagement, and help give
  effect to teaching and learning objectives.
  Efficient structures and procedures facilitate
  the interaction between academic provision and
  academic support.

17
Next example

• Academic support services which are adequately
  staffed, resourced and have the necessary
  infrastructure in place. The institution provides
  development opportunities for support staff to
  enhance their expertise and to enable them to
  keep abreast of developments in their field.

18
Last example

• Regular review of the effectiveness of academic
  support services for the core functions of the
  institution.

19
How helpful is this??

• Not exactly the ACRLs final, approved document
  or quality standards for libraries in higher
  education (ACRL 2004)
• Deconstruction in progress!

20
adequately provide

• Growing collections
• Well-chosen resources
• Unit costs ratios
• Electronic access to library resources
• Appropriate infrastructure
• Library budget as a percentage of institutional
  budget

21
teaching and learning

• Evidence of use full busy library
• Circulation
• Access to electronic resources
• Hits on Library web-page
• Collaboration between Library Academic staff

22
needs of research

• Resource sharing activities
• Consultative procedures for materials selection
• Electronic availability of research materials
• Active participation in research activities

23
interaction between academic provision
support

• Information literacy activities
• Number of classes
• Number of students
• Knowledge Commons

24
efficient structures and procedures

• Library properly administered run
• Efficiency indicators
• Acquisition speed
• Turn-around time
• ILL delivery times

25
adequately staffed, resourced structured

• Range of services
• Competence of staff
• Adequate staff staff/student ratios
• Library input in institutional budget
  decision-making processes

26
development opportunities for staff

• Staff enabled encouraged to grow
• participation in professional activities
  organisations
• encouraged funded to undertake further study
• in-service training
• participation in research activities

27
regular review of effectiveness

• User surveys LibQUAL
• Feedback heeded
• suggestion boxes,
• bulletin boards
• web based discussions
• Library support for the mission goals of
  Institution

28
Conclusion

• Many other possible indicators
• First draft of document for distribution
• AIM
• to assist HEI libraries in
• counting what matters to measure what counts!