Because of technology, the old measures of service quality no longer apply. If libraries are to succeed, they must see themselves in competition with other institutions and sources of information--especially the Web--and make customers feel welcome and valued. This classic book is brought fully up to date as Peter Hernon and Ellen Altman integrate the use of technology into the customer experience. They offer solid, practical ideas for developing a customer service plan that meets the library's customer-focused mission, vision, and goals, and challenge librarians to think about customer service in new ways, including * Distance education * Use of library Web sites * Partnerships and consortia for electronic collections * Ways to effectively embrace change for continuous improvement Senior librarians, library directors, and trustees will learn how to see the library as the customer does with the aid of dozens of tools to measure service quality--from mystery shoppers and benchmarking to surveys and group interviews.

Assessing Service Quality: Satisfying the Expectations of Library Customers

Hernon, Peter

Altman, Ellen

Reference

ALA Editions

Academic and public libraries are continuing to transform as the information landscape changes, expanding their missions into new service roles that call for improved organizational performance and accountability. Since Assessing Service Quality premiered in 1998, receiving the prestigious Highsmith Library Literature Award, scores of library managers and administrators have trusted its guidance for applying a customer-centered approach to service quality and performance evaluation. This extensively revised and updated edition explores even further the ways technology influences both the experiences of library customers and the ways libraries themselves can assess those experiences. With a clear focus on real-world application, the authors
<ul>
<li>Challenge conventional thinking about the utility of input, output, and performance metrics by suggesting new ways to think about the evaluation and assessment of library services</li>
<li>Explain service quality and customer satisfaction, and demonstrate how they are separate but intertwined</li>
<li>Identify procedures for qualitatively and quantitatively measuring both service quality and satisfaction</li>
<li>Encourage libraries to take action by presenting concrete steps they can take to become more customer-centric</li>
<li>Offer a range of customer-related metrics that provide insights useful for library planning and decision making, such as surveys and focus groups</li>
</ul>This book shows how to nurture an environment of continuous improvement through effective service quality assessment.

Dugan, Robert E.

Successfully managing a library means doing the right things right all the time. If a library's resources are being channeled to objectives that have little or nothing to do with the library's mission and goals for its community, the library is doing the wrong things right and probably will be unable to meet its real goals.
Every public library, regardless of size, has four important resources to help meet its mission and achieve its goals in the community. Staff, the library's collection, technology, and the library facility itself all need to be effectively managed for the library to achieve the right results.
Using the Planning for Results planning process as the springboard, the Public Library Association has developed a new tool to enable librarians to allocate and reallocate to help the library achieve its goals and meet community needs.
Managing for Results requires librarians to take a proactive approach to marshaling and managing all of the library's resources effectively. Using this planning guide, librarians will be able to identify their key resources, make choices among different priorities, and assign resources to achieve results.
The key to successfully allocating resources is first knowing what you want to accomplish. Most of a library's resources are already allocated to some objective or another. However, Managing for Results forces you to evaluate whether resources are being used to achieve the real objectives of the library in the community. This may mean reallocating resources, or evaluating library goals to be sure that the library's resources are used to ensure that the library achieves its mission, serves the community, and gives patrons what they need and want.
The numerous workforms are designed to enable librarians to identify, collect, and analyze the information needed to correctly allocate resources. They focus on the factors needed to allocate resources, such as the number of professional staff needed, how to budget for library materials, the amount of space needed for programs, and the type and amount of software and hardware needed for the community served.
Using the workforms and the guidelines, librarians can focus on their specific library's needs and objectives. The process outlined in Managing for Results can be used regardless of the planning process used, the size of the facility, and the library's mission.

Managing for Results: Effective Resource Allocation for Public Libraries (PLA Results)

Mayo, Diane

Nelson, Sandra

Service quality is an issue separate from internal observations of effectiveness and efficiency, and cannot adequately be conveyed by output and performance measures. Considerations of service quality require librarians to regard management and the provision of service from an entirely new perspective- from the viewpoint of the library user, for whom the outcome of a trip to the library has far greater relevance than the institutions' outputs. This book examines service quality, identifies its essential elements (including electronic service delivery), and discusses ways in which it can be assessed quantitatively and qualitatively. Based on a two-year research study, this book encourages every manager to consider the impact of accountability on the library's role within the larger organization. It identifies simple and practical methods by which to implement measures representing service quality and to narrow the gap between library services and customer expectations.

Service Quality in Academic Libraries (Contemporary Studies in Information Management, Policies, and Services)

Praeger

Service quality is an issue separate from internal observations of effectiveness and efficiency, and cannot adequately be conveyed by output and performance measures. Considerations of service quality require librarians to regard management and the provision of service from an entirely new perspective- from the viewpoint of the library user, for whom the outcome of a trip to the library has far greater relevance than the institutions' outputs. This book examines service quality, identifies its essential elements (including electronic service delivery), and discusses ways in which it can be assessed quantitatively and qualitatively. Based on a two-year research study, this book encourages every manager to consider the impact of accountability on the library's role within the larger organization. It identifies simple and practical methods by which to implement measures representing service quality and to narrow the gap between library services and customer expectations.

Service Quality in Academic Libraries (Information Management, Policy, and Services)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Research Misconduct: Issues, Implications, and Stratagies (Contemporary Studies in Information Management, Policies, and Services)

Philosophy

Research Misconduct: Issues, Implications, and Stratagies (Contemporary Studies in Information Management, Policy, and Services)

Hermon, Peter

Technological progress has meant that the old measures of service quality no longer apply. If libraries are to succeed, they must see themselves in competition with other institutions and sources of information, especially the Web, and make customers feel welcome and valued. This classic book is brought fully up to date as Peter Hernon and Ellen Altman integrate the use of technology into the customer experience. They offer solid, practical ideas for developing a customer service plan that meets the library's customer-focused mission, vision, and goals, challenging librarians to think about customer service in new ways, including: distance education; use of library websites; partnerships and consortia for electronic collections; and ways to effectively embrace change for continuous improvement.

Assessing Service Quality: Satisfying the expectations of library customers

Dugan, Robert

Facet Publishing

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Books by Altman, Ellen

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Altman, Ellen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Assessing Service Quality: Satisfying the Expectations of Library Customers

Assessing Service Quality: Satisfying the Expectations of Library Customers

Managing for Results: Effective Resource Allocation for Public Libraries (PLA Results)

Service Quality in Academic Libraries (Contemporary Studies in Information Management, Policies, and Services)

Service Quality in Academic Libraries (Information Management, Policy, and Services)

Research Misconduct: Issues, Implications, and Stratagies (Contemporary Studies in Information Management, Policies, and Services)

Research Misconduct: Issues, Implications, and Stratagies (Contemporary Studies in Information Management, Policy, and Services)

Assessing Service Quality: Satisfying the expectations of library customers