No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Details on how to seek permission, further information about the Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangements with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions.
This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be noted herein).
Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.
To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802105-7
British Library
Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015955064
For information on all Chandos Publishing visit our website at http://store.elsevier.com/
Elizabeth Kocevar-Weidinger
Library, Howard Community College, Columbia, MD, USA
Martin Lewis
Formerly University Library, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
Vivian Lewis
Office of the University Librarian, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
Alison Little University Library, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
Gemma Long
Quality Assurance Agency, United Kingdom
Alison Mackenzie
Edge Hill University, Lancashire, United Kingdom; SCONUL Performance Measurement and Quality Strategy Group, London, United Kingdom
Frances O’Neil
Scholarly Information Services, Library, Victoria University, VIC, Australia
Fiona Parsons
Directorate of Academic Support, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, United Kingdom
Janet Peters
University Library Service, Cardiff University, Wales, United Kingdom
Jon Purcell
University Library, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom
Jaya Raju
Library and Information Studies Centre, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Reggie Raju
Client Liaison Services, University of Cape Town Libraries, Cape Town, South Africa
Danny Saunders
Quality Assurance Agency, United Kingdom
Eryl Smith
North Wales NHS Library Service, Glan Clwyd Hospital, Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board, Wales, United Kingdom
Simon Speight
University Library and Heritage Collections, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom
Stephen Town
Formerly University Library, University of York,York, United Kingdom
Jakob Trischler
Southern Cross Business School, Southern Cross University, NSW, Australia
Graham Walton
University Library, Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Jeremy Atkinson has wide-ranging experience and expertise in the leadership, management and development of academic library services. He had overall responsibility for the strategic and operational management of library and information services at the University of Glamorgan from 1991 to 2012. He previously held library posts at the University of Northumbria, Cardiff University and Manchester Metropolitan University.
Jeremy was a key member of University-wide and Faculty quality assurance groups at the University of Glamorgan, played an important role in a number of institutional quality reviews and led the development of library service agreements with Glamorgan’s further education partner colleges.
For 8 years, Jeremy was Chair of the SCONUL/UCISA Working Group on Quality Assurance which involved close liaison with the Quality Assurance Agency and he was responsible for leading the production of an ‘Aide-Memoire for QAA Reviewers Evaluating Learning Resources’. As Chair of the Working Group, he was invited to give the keynote paper on the UK experience of quality assurance of learning resources at the FOTIM/CHELSA Conference in Pretoria in South Africa in 2006.
Jeremy has had a long-standing and active involvement in a large number of UK strategic committees and groups, notably those of Jisc (continuous involvement from 1998 to 2012), SCONUL (including 3 years as a trustee and member of SCONUL Executive Board) and WHELF (Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum). Jeremy has produced a wide range of publications and conference papers on topics including change management, quality assurance, electronic resources, library collaboration and networked moving images. His most recent experience (2012 to date) is as a Library and Information Services Consultant working with a number of high profile clients, including Jisc, SCONUL and individual UK universities. This work has included research and reviews of library and information services and projects.
call to assess our institutional quality. As Chair of the SCONUL/UCISA Working Group on Quality Assurance1 I tried to influence the QAA to look at library services in a more considered way during institutional reviews. I was on the receiving end when consultants reviewed our library services, and then, several years later, saw the process from a different perspective when I was a consultant reviewing another institution’s library service.
This led me to want to try to capture all these different perspectives, to hear the different voices and the views of the different players in order to produce a rounded picture of quality and the academic library. So, in this book, there are views, perspectives and case studies not just from librarians, but also from university senior managers, an auditor, a QAA manager and those involved in large scale reviews of library services.
The literature relating to the quality of the academic library has become substantial and complex and can be difficult for the nonexpert librarian or librarianship student to gain access to and understand. The aim of this book is to help deal with this problem by providing a wide ranging introduction and overview of the area whilst, at the same time, offering a practical approach through case studies and up to date and reflective content for the more experienced information professional. The book also seeks to present a different approach by:
● Providing accessible content within the overviews of each area, and including the more readable articles in the references and further reading sections.
● Providing signposts to the key trends, key developments and key resources.
● Covering the different aspects. Introductions are provided to the different quality concepts and approaches. The different ways quality is looked at in academic libraries – assurance, assessment, review and enhancement – are examined and there is detailed coverage of the changing nature of library services and support and the approaches used to analyse quality in two of the key market segments for libraries in students and researchers.
● Looking at the changing environment in which academic libraries are operating. Consideration of quality cannot be static because of the enormous changes within and around the library services, and libraries themselves have to change to continue to provide high quality and relevant services. Where appropriate, there is coverage of the political, economic, social and technological changes impacting on academic
ENDNOTE
1. The Working Group on Quality Assurance was a joint group of SCONUL (Society of College, National and University Libraries) and UCISA (Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association).
REFERENCES
Borton, T. (1970). Reach, touch and teach: Student concerns and process education. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Gray, D. E. (2007). Facilitating management learning: Developing critical reflection through reflective tools. Management Learning, 38(5), 495–517. Retrieved from <http://epubs. surrey.ac.uk/7876/1/fulltext.pdf>.
Kim, H. S. (1999). Critical reflective inquiry for knowledge development in nursing practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 29(5), 1205–1212.
Williams, B. (2001). Developing critical reflection for professional practice through problembased learning. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 34(1), 27–34. Retrieved from <http://www. themedfomscu.org/media/elip/PBL45.pdf>.
CHAPTER 2
Quality, Universities and Their Libraries: An Overview
Jeremy Atkinson
Jeremy Atkinson Consultancy, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
During the last 20 years, with an increasing government focus on market approaches and university performance and accountability, universities in the United Kingdom have become more managerial in their approach with a greater emphasis on performance, efficiency and meeting customer needs. From the perspective of some academic staff, this has led to some tensions with the long standing philosophies of academic freedom and autonomy (Docherty, 2014). From the perspective of senior university managers, universities have needed to become more like businesses, with a requirement to apply business practices and techniques, including strategic planning, key performance indicators, quality management and service quality. Similar trends can also be seen in other countries (Anderson, 2008; Arimoto, 2010).
The competitive, performance related, business focused and market led nature of current UK higher education can be clearly seen in a number of trends and developments taking place within institutions:
● The almost continuous and complex academic quality assurance processes that have been applied, both internally (e.g. course approval, validation, annual monitoring, periodic review, external examiner systems) and externally (e.g. quality reviews, professional body accreditations). Failure in external assessments can be extremely significant for the status of the institution and its ability to run courses.
● The time and effort that goes into preparation for periodic research assessment exercises, such as the REF (Research Excellence Framework) in the United Kingdom. An inadequate performance can result in loss of institutional funding and reputation and potential closure of poor performing departments (Ratcliffe, 2014).
● The obsession with league tables and benchmarking (national and international), with the institution continually seeking to maintain,
or preferably improve, position in order to enhance status and recruitment.
● The time and effort put into running and responding to surveys, both internally and nationally (e.g. National Student Survey in the United Kingdom) to seek to identify customer satisfaction, respond to customer needs and to maintain institutional status.
● The achievement of a Standard (e.g. Investors in People, Customer Service Excellence) which can develop university staff and service quality, but which can also have competitive advantages.
● The requirement to provide a range of institutional performance data for the Key Information Set1 to help students make their choice where to study.
● The implementation of rigorous and time consuming strategic planning processes, seeking to gain competitive advantage and trying to ensure integration within the institution (‘everyone singing from the same hymn sheet’).
● A focus on value for money and the potential of shared services, such as purchasing consortia, to achieve efficiencies (Universities UK, 2015). These developments have implications for structures and processes and have required universities to put in place rigorous systems to ensure that quality processes are applied consistently and comprehensively and that outcomes and feedback are acted upon to deliver continuous improvement. In the United Kingdom most universities have an organisational structure including a central academic or quality office to ensure that academic quality processes are implemented effectively, a central research office to coordinate research processes and research assessment activity, and, increasingly, a planning unit to lead on activities such as strategic planning, data returns and process improvement. The increasing importance of continuous process improvement can be seen in a job advertisement at the University of Gloucestershire in December 2014 for a Process Improvement Manager in the Planning Office with responsibility for ‘developing and supporting improvement projects and programmes across the University and developing a culture of continuous improvement … as part of the University’s commitment to improving administrative performance’.
As well as organisational structures, there are also implications for the quality methods used. Quality management techniques and tools that were originally used in large manufacturing organisations in the 1980s and 1990s have been looked at by universities keen to eliminate waste,
McNichol, S. (2005). The challenges of strategic planning in academic libraries. New Library World, 106(11–12), 496–509.
Pryor, M. G., Alexander, C., Taneja, S., Tirumalasetty, S., & Chadalavada, D. (2012). The application of six sigma methodologies to university processes: The use of student teams. Journal of Case Studies in Accreditation and Assessment, 2, 123–136. Retrieved from <http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/111045.pdf>.
Quinn, A., Lemay, G., Larsen, P., & Johnson, D. M. (2009). Service quality in higher education. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 20(2), 139–152.
Ratcliffe, R. (December 17, 2014). REF 2014: Why is it such a big deal? Guardian Retrieved from <http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2014/ dec/17/ref-2014-why-is-it-such-a-big-deal>.
Stratford, S. K. (2002). Surviving a distance learning accreditation visit. Journal of Library Administration, 37(3–4), 489–501.
Universities UK, (2015). Efficiencies, effectiveness and value for money. London: Universities UK. Retrieved from <http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Documents/ 2015/EfficiencyEffectivenessValueForMoney.pdf>.
It is arguable whether on occasions the full resource implications of this ‘signing off’ by an academic library service is fully appreciated by the institution. Institutional academic planning is not always aligned with institutional fiscal planning. Faculty and academic departments are not necessarily aware of the requirements, not only for additional scholarly resources, but also of the broader impact on library services. It is noticeable that there is no single sectoral view of ‘best practice’ in developing budgetary models for academic library resources. In the context of convergence of IT and Library services, the ‘disconnect’ between academic planning, and impact on the service, can be even more marked in the case of IT Services. Questions such as software purchase and deployment, access for students to appropriate devices, and support services, can be completely absent from planning and validation processes. The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education report into TNE (Lawton & Jensen, 2015) noted that IT Services are almost invisible in planning for TNE (Transnational Education) and overseas curriculum development. This, in spite of the fact that digitised information resources are critical to successful delivery of any academic programme, whether UK or overseas. In any event, even though programme proposals may be part of a broader institutional wide programme planning process, it is still a fairly reactive approach to quality assuring and enhancing academic library services. This is also the case where academic libraries are involved in the periodic review of programmes or subject areas. Institutions schedule periodic review on a rolling programme whereby subject areas or programmes are reviewed every 5–6 years. Again the Quality Code places an expectation on higher education providers that programmes will be subject to review (QAA, 2013b). For the most part periodic review processes have a tendency to be retrospective, based on an evidence base of annual monitoring, external examiners reports, and a range of student surveys. As part of the process it is customary for the subject area under review to produce a self-evaluation document that is reflective and evaluative – a challenge in itself. Whilst periodic review should provide an opportunity for change, in many cases this may be quite limited and unless issues have been identified for the library service in the evidence, it is not necessarily an effective way of quality assuring or enhancing the LIS provision. It is also likely that where issues have been raised in surveys, etc., that these will have already been addressed by the service.
Disintermediation of information and consequential concerns about the visibility of academic libraries is widespread. The academic library
There may be internal institutional wide surveys which capture the student experience and complement national surveys. However, as students generally associate themselves with a course or programme, responses tend to provide a narrow view of their experience.
There are of course a range of external surveys, not least the National Student Survey,1 and the Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey & Postgraduate Research Experience Survey2 which attempt to drive up the quality of the student experience. These surveys include questions about resources including the library service and at the very least provide an opportunity for benchmarking by institutions, but tend to lack the detail for identifying and sharing good practice between service providers. How institutions use the outcome of such surveys varies by institution. Many may subsume the outcomes into the annual monitoring process where the view of the library services may be diluted by scores for teaching & learning, feedback etc. Others may expect separate responses and action plans to be monitored through the various committee structures. However, in each case these surveys whilst providing a snapshot for quality assurance of the library provision do not necessarily provide a strategic approach to quality assurance and enhancement.
The Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL)3 runs its own annual statistical survey which has the benefit of a strong longitudinal data set. In itself, it is not an evaluative tool, although the data set has been mined for a variety of purposes, including institutional benchmarking, and trend analysis. The contribution of the SCONUL survey to evaluation of academic libraries has been indirect, therefore, but it remains a significant feature in the performance measurement landscape.
OTHER MECHANISMS
Most academic libraries, recognising the limitations of surveys for providing intelligence on the quality of library services, seek to implement other approaches to obtaining views on service quality. The discussion of good practice through journal articles, conference presentations and professional networks, indicates adoption of a sometimes bewildering variety of tools. These range from the well-established, such as benchmarking and performance measures (KPIs, balanced scorecard) to the fashionably new, such as the increasing use of analytics.
who meet the review team with the evidence base. At the very least students will see the HER as an opportunity to place leverage on institutions in relation to things which they perceive as key issues. The possible downside of HER is that it tends to put innovation on ‘hold’ until the review period is complete.
Whilst the Higher Education Funding Council7 is currently consulting on the quality assurance of higher education and whether QAA will continue to be contracted to undertake this work, there is little doubt that government will expect there to be a review process and appropriate body tasked with implementing it to ensure that internationally UK higher education continues to be seen as excellent. Furthermore many countries have their own equivalent quality assurance body and review methodology and in some cases look to the United Kingdom to advise on HER, for example, Mauritius,8 Singapore,9 Australia,10 Europe.11
IMPACT
So what impact do institutions’ quality assurance processes and frameworks have on library services? Are they the most effective way in quality assuring and enhancing library services? For some staff, both academic and professional support, internal quality assurance policies and procedures are perceived as overly bureaucratic – barriers to academic freedom and hurdles to be surmounted. However, such frameworks where they are well established provide institutions with a range of checks and balances through validation, monitoring and review which allow the student voice to be heard and in turn lead to enhancement of student learning opportunities. For example, one issue common to many HE institutions has been library opening hours with students demanding longer opening hours even though the reality is that only a few students may want physical access to the library at 2.00 in the morning. The response of library services has been to respond positively to such requests in a manageable way. Likewise access by students to materials off-campus has been facilitated by responding to the student voice.
However, whilst these processes provide leverage for students and indeed staff, they are not necessarily the most effective means of quality assuring and enhancing the library service. Certainly the view of Karen Tang (2013) is that excellence is achieved outside traditional quality assurance processes.
