DOCUMENT RESUME ED 365 343 AUTHOR Childers, Thomas A.; … · Why Should Effectiveness Concern Us? 6. Approaches to Effectiveness 7 Conclusion 8. 2. Effectiveness and Evaluation 9

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Childers, Thomas A.; Van House, Nancy A.What's Good? Describing Your Public Library'sEffectiveness.American Library Association, Chicago, Ill.Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED),Washington, DC.ISBN-0-8389-0617-693

98p.; For a related report, see IR 054 796.ALA Books, American Library Association, 50 EastHuron St., Chicago, IL 60611 ($25).Guides Non-Classroom Use (055) ReportsDescriptive (141) Tests/Evaluation Instruments(160)

MF01/PC04 Plus Postage.Budgeting; Efficiency; Evaluation Methods; EvaluationResearch; *Institutional Evaluation; *LibraryAdministration; Library Services; Library Surveys;Long Range Planning; Models; *OrganizationalEffectiveness; Personnel Evaluation; *PublicLibraries

IDENTIFIERS American Library Association

ABSTRACTThis workbook explains how to define what various

constituents connected with a public library want it to do and whatdoing these things well means in qualitative terms. The book aims todefine effectiveness for the public library and to provide guidelinesfor assessing the library's effectiveness and communicating this tostakeholders. The eight chapters address the following topics: (1)organizational effectiveness; (2) how to gauge effectiveness; (3) thesteps that the public library field has taken to improve the ways ofassessing and communicating effectiveness, including strategicplanning, measurement, personnel appraisal, and budgeting; (4) keycharacteristics of the public library and how these characteristicsmight affect the way library managers depict its effectiveness; (5)the major results of "The Public Library Effectiveness Study"; (6)

the AMPLE (A Model of Public Library Effectiveness) framework bywhich a manager may plan a program of assessing public libraryeffectiveness; (7) using AMPLE to communicate with a library'sconstituent groups; and (8) summary or the major arguments of thebook. The AMPLE worksheet is found in the appendices, and abibliography is included. °LB)

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Describing Your PublicLibraiys Effectiveness

Thomas A. Childers and Nancy A. Van House

BEST COPY MARL

91

What'sGood'.Describing Your PublicLibrary's Effectiveness

Thomas A. Childers and Nancy A. Van House

American Library AssociationChicago and London 1993

3

Cover designed by Charles Bozett

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Childers, Thomas, 1940 -What's Good? : describing your public library's

effectiveness / by Thomas A. Childers and Nancy A.Van House.

p. cm.Includes index.ISBN 0-8389-0617-61. Public relations--LibrariesUnited States. 2. Public

libraries--United States--Administration. I. Van House,Nancy A. II. Title.Z716.3.C48 1993021.7dc20

93-3683

Copyright 1993 by the American Library Association. Allrights reserved except those which may be granted by Sec-tions 107 and 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976.

Printed in the United States of America.

97 96 95 94 93 5 4 3 2 1

4

This book is dedicated toJohn, Joey, and 148 oysters,

who all gave variously to the causeat Point Reyes in the summer of '92.

5

ContentsTh's Book Is about . . . 1

Our mission is to (1) define effectiveness for the pub-lic library and (2) provide guidelines for assessing thelibrary's effectiveness and communicating same tothe library's stakeholders.

The impatient reader can go directly to chapter 8,"And, in Sum . . ," for a capsule view of the bookand its parts, then move directly to the parts of great-est interest.

1 What is Good? 5In which is asked the question, "How do you tell agood library from a bad library?" and in which is laiddown the beginning of the answer.

The Quintessential Question 5Why Should Effectiveness Concern Us? 6Approaches to Effectiveness 7Conclusion 8

2 Effectiveness andEvaluation 9In which effectiveness is linked to such slippery ideasas evaluation, measurement, qualitative and quanti-tative evidence, and the "systems" way of looking atthings.

Measuring vs. Evaluating 9Dimensions, Indicators, and Measures of

Goodness 10Evaluating through Numbers and through

Stories 11

Evaluating via the General SystemsModel 12

Conclusion 14

6

3 Advances on theGoodness Question inLibraries 15Wherein is shown how the public library field hastaken steps to improve the way libraries assess andcommunicate goodness. The steps include strategicplanning, measurement, personnel appraisal, andbudgeting systems.

Planning and Measurement 15Measurement 16

Measures and the Systems Model 16Planning 18

Planning and Evaluation 18Budgeting 19

Appraising Individual Performance 21Conclusion 22

4 The Nature of theLibrary Organizationand Implications forEffectiveness 24Being an analysis of what makes the public libraryorganization tick in its environment--how it livesand changes and the elements that determine itsgoodness.

The Nature of the Library 24The Library as a Public Organization 24

The Service Organization 25Self-Service 26Conclusion 27

vi Contents

5 The Public Library 7 Applying AMPLE 54Effectiveness Study 28Within, a brief description of the research on which isbased a model of public library effectiveness.

Purpose 28Method 28Findings 28

Indicators of Effectiveness 28Differences among Stakeholders 28Dimensions of Effectiveness 29

6 A Model of PublicLibrary Effectiveness(AMPLE) 33In which is displayed and explicated a framework bywhich the manager may plan a program of repre-senting the effectiveness of the library.

The Major Uses of AMPLE 33Review Your Assessment Program 33Develop a Program for Assessment 33Create a Strategy for Communicating with

the Stakeholders 34The Structure of AMPLE 34The Nature of the AMPLE Measures 35

The Short AMPLE 36Notes on Using AMPLE 36The Annotated AMPLE 36Types of Measures in AMPLE 38

Available Statistical Data 38

Tally 39Inspection 39Survey 40Survey of Services 40

Conclusion 53

On the use of AMPLE, with lessons from writers andpracticing librarians about how to communicate withstakeholders, especially the critical external ones.

Talking to Stakeholders, Generally 54Stories vs. Data 57

Talking to the Particular Stakeholders 59Stakeholders, via the Public Library Effective-

ness Study 60External Stakeholders 60Internal Stakeholders 64Boundary-Spanning Stakeholders 65Conclusion 66

8 And, in Sum... 67Wherein the major points made in the preceding arerecapped and the implications for the library futureare drawn.

Effectiveness Defined 67Evaluation 68Management Tools 68The Public Library Itself 69A Model of Public Library Effectiveness 69

Using AMPLE with Stakeholders 70Final Thoughts 71

AppendicesA. The AMPLE Worksheet 75B. Checklist of Library Services 87

Bibliography 89

Index 91

This Book Is about . . .

Our mission is to (1) define effectiveness for the pub-lic library and (2) provide guidelines for assessing thelibrary's effectiveness and communicating same tothe library's stakeholders.

The impatient reader can go directly to chapter 8,"And, in Sum . ," for a capsule view of the bookand its parts, then move directly to the parts ofgreatest interest.

Organizations in the public sector are in dan-ger. Public libraries are in danger.

The dangers are many, and they threaten everypublic organization with the possibility of re-duced usership, reduced funding, and reducedpolitical and social support. The story of the as-sorted dangers has been told often. Their impacthas been felt by every organization, from sanita-tion departments to arts leagues to ... libraries.

The dangers we speak of are largely external.The environment that sustains the public libraryorganizationand every other public organiza-tionis the same environment that threatens it.Yet the threats themselves, the dangers to orga-nizational existence, imply what a public organi-zationa librarymight do to maintain its healthin that nurturing yet perilous environment.

. . . organizations survive to the extent they areeffective. (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978, 2)

Management must make sure that the organi-zation is effective.

Just as important, the organization must be seenas effective. That is, the organization must suc-cessfully representdemonstrate, declareitseffectiveness to the environment. Being effectiveand representing effectiveness are two differentthings; but they are equally important.

8

What's Good? is about the two component partsof representing the organization's effectiveness:assessing, or gathering, appropriate intelligenceabout the state of the library organization; andcommunicating, or transmitting, that intelligencein a useful and influential way to the library'sstakeholders. That is the theme of the book.Moreover, it concentrates on representing thelibrary to the external stakeholdersthose out-side the library who directly or indirectly affectthe library's present and future.

Making the organization more effective isimportant, but that is not the aim of this book,except insofar as the very acts of assessing effec-tiveness better and communicating that assess-ment better can make the organization moreeffective. That is, in a circular way, better assess-ment and better communication of effectivenessare themselves components of effectiveness.

The mission of this book is to offer a frame-work that will help the library manager developa program of assessment and strategies for com-municating that assessment to the library's envi-ronmentin short, a scheme for representingthe public library organization.

Howard Rubin recently published a recipe forthe organization that wants to develop an evalu-ation program:

Identify all audiences for measurement.Analyze the measurement needs of eachaudience.Produce a map that cross-references audiencesto needs.Produce a map that cross-references needsto possible metrics.Decide which candidate metrics to use.Establish priorities and a phased implementationplan.

(Rubin 1991, 79)

1

2 This Book Is about .. .

The "maps" that Rubin recommends are ex-actly what we offer here: a framework for decid-ing how to assess and communicate the organi-zation'sin this case, the public library'seffectiveness. The framework is called "A Modelof Public Library Effectiveness" (AMPLE). Incontrast to the popular Output Measures for Pub-lic Libraries (Van House and others 1987), whichconcentrates on service outputs, AMPLE offersa bread array of assessment points, from inputsthrough outputs, and moves toward service out-comes, or impact. In doing so, AMPLE recog-nizes that a range of assessment points isrequired in order to represent a public library'seffectiveness fully to its various stakeholdergroups.

Chapter 1 is about organizational effective-ness: what it is and why we care. It begins byasking, "How do you tell a good library from abad library?" and discusses the beginnings of ananswer by looking at past approaches to effec-tiveness in the management literature.

Chapter 2 is about how to gauge effective-ness, and it links effectiveness to such slipperyideas as evaluation, measurement, qualitativeand quantitative evidence, and the systemsapproach to organizations.

Chapter 3 presents the steps that the publiclibrary field has taken to improve the ways ofassessing and communicating goodness, includ-ing strategic planning, measurement, personnelappraisal, and budgeting.

Chapter 4 considers what makes the publiclibrary what it is and how its particular charac-teristics might affect the way library managersdepict its effectiveness.

Chapter 5 briefly presents the methods andkey findings of The Public Library EffectivenessStudy, which forms the research basis of thisbook.

Chapter 6 unveils "A Model of Public LibraryEffectiveness" (AMPLE): a framework by whichthe manager may plan a program of assessingpublic library effectiveness.

Chapter 7 is about using AMPLE to commu-nicate. The library has a number of key stake-holder groups who must be identified andwhose particular needs and preferences deter-mine how to talk to them about effectiveness.

Finally, Chapter 8 recaps the major argu-ments of the book and discusses their implica-tions for public library management.

This book is for library managers. It addressesdirectly the executive level of the library organi-zation and emphasizes the organization's inter-

action with the external environment. However,much of the discussion and many of the recom-mendations in the book can be applied to inter-nal decisions regarding the operation of thelibrary. And most of the content can be appliedto subunits (departments) of the library, such astechnical processing or reference, if one E (trapo-lates, viewing the subunit as the "organization"and the overall organization as the "externalenvironment." Branches of library systems canbenefit particularly well from this discussion.Their external environment encompasses boththe larger library system and the external world.

The book's venue is the public library, forthat is the context in which our major researchand developmental work have taken place.Nonetheless, many of the principles and conclu-sions drawn in this volume will translate toother types of libraries: academic, special, andschool. These libraries, too, share common prob-lems of assessing their effectiveness and com-municating it internally and externally; only theparticulars differ. Moreover, the principlesunderlying the book are applicable to other pub-lic sector organizations.

What's Good? is based on our 40 collectiveyears of experience in evaluating and studyinglibraries; consulting with library staffs anddirectors; and, particularly, our recent researchon public library effectiveness. That research canbe found in the companion book to this, The Pub-lic Library Effectiveness Study (Van House andChilders 1993), a nationwide study to develop adefinition of public library effectiveness.

AcknowledgmentsThe book was nurtured by many things:

The sites of Philadelphia, Berkeley, San Fran-cisco, San Antonio, Inverness (California),Toronto, Sheffield, London, Brighton, andseveral airplanes, which inspired the writing;The librarians, community leaders, local offi-cials, library friends, trustees, library users,and other subjects of the study;The people who advised us during the study:Kathy Arnold, Pottstown (Pennsylvania) Pub-lic Library; Herbert Davis, past trustee, Balti-more County Public Library; Sandy Dolnick,Friends of Libraries USA; Fred Philipp,Ingram Library Services; Eleanor Jo Rodger,Urban Libraries Council; Eliott Shelkrot,Free Library of Philadelphia; and Kathryn

This Book Is about . . . 3

Stephanoff, Allentown (Pennsylvania) PublicLibrary;At Drexel, Dr. Howard White, for his statisti-cal advice, and Rebecca Fisher and KathleenH. Turner, who assisted in or oversaw manyfacets of the study with extraordinary skill;and Sue Easun, who competently and grace-fully held up the Berkeley end;At Berkeley, Vickie Parker, proofreaderextraordinaire;At the University of Minnesota, Dr. GeorgeD'Elia, for additional advice on analysis;The kindness of non-strangers who reviewedand commented on the draft: Karen Krueger,Janesville (Wisconsin) Public Library; AmyOwen, Utah State Library; and Dr. Jane Rob-bins, University of Wisconsin;The U.S. Department of Education, Office ofEducational Research & Improvement, which

underwrote most of the study from whichthis book developed.

ReferencesPfeffer, Jeffrey, and Gerald R. Salancik. 1978.

The External Control of Organizations. NewYork: Harper and Row.

Rubin, Howard. 1991. "Inch into Measurement."Computerworld (April 15): 79.

Van House, Nancy A., and Thomas Childers.1993. The Public Library Effectiveness Study: TheComplete Report. Chicago: American LibraryAssociation.

Van House, Nancy A., Mary Jo Lynch, CharlesR. McClure, Douglas L. Zweizig, and EleanorJo Rodger. 1987. Output Measures for PublicLibraries, 2nd ed. Chicago: American LibraryAssociation.

10

What Is Good?In which is asked the question, "How do you tell agood library from a bad library?" and in which is laiddown the beginning of the answer.

The real essence of appearing competent is for managersto demonstrate that their agency is specialthat theydo good things that other agencies do not do and thatthey set standards that other agencies would do well tofollow. (Chase and Reveal 1983, 51)

The QuintessentialQuestion"How can you tell a good X from a bad X?" Thequestion has probably been on the mind ofhumankind since the realization that there wasmore than one X. We are fundamentally evalua-tive animals and, just as we evaluate all things,we evaluate organizations. They are supposedto accomplish something, to be in some waygood for something, and someone has alwaysbeen there to ask the question, "How good?"

Organizations are supposed to be good; librariesare supposed to be good.

The goodness question is implied in attemptsto describe the benefits derived from organiza-tions, to explain their impact, to set their bud-gets, to restructure them, to change their opera-tions, to count their accomplishments, and onrare occasion to disband them. The GrossDomestic Product is a way of representing thegoodness of the national economy. Number ofwelfare cases handled and number of indigentpeople fed are ways of representing goodnessfor certain human service organizations. Netprofits is a way to represent goodness for profit-

11

1making organizations. Win-loss records repre-sent goodness for sports teams.

Organizations are supposed to be good;libraries are supposed to be good. The questionof goodness translates in today's managementliterature into the subject of effectiveness.

Pfeffer and Salancik define effectiveness thisway:

The effectiveness of an organization is its ability tocreate acceptable outcomes and actions. . . . itreflects both an assessment of the usefulness ofwhat is being done and of the resources that arebeing consumed by the organization (Pfeffer andSalancik 1978, 11).

This book treats effectiveness very broadly,even more broadly than they. In this chapter,you will encounter effectiveness from a numberof points of viewall of them valid. To put allpoints of view into a single definition, it has tobe simple and broad: goodness, or achieving suc-cess, the quality of performance, conceived in manydifferent ways. The important point, to be dealtwith shortly, is that the idea of goodness is mul-tiform. It is inclusive rather than exclusive.

Effectiveness is:

goodness,achieving success, andthe quality of performance.

We can distinguish between effectiveness andefficiency, defining effectiveness as impact on theconsumer or user and efficiency as the economywith which "effect" is achieved. Commonly, out-puts and outcomes are emphasized in effective-ness. However, the broader definition of effective-ness embraces all aspects of the organization. Onecan view effectiveness in terms of organizationalinputs (resources), processes (activities), outputs

5

6 What Is Good?

(products and services), outcomes (impact onclients and community), and interactions withthe social, political, and economic environment.For organizations, effectiveness can be assessedat the level of the individual, the work unit, thedepartment, or the whole organization. Our con-cern in this book is the latter: organization-leveleffectiveness.

Why Should EffectivenessConcern Us?

The government manager has one final responsibility:to maintain the health of the organization by seeing thatit adjusts to new political demands.

(Heymann 1987, 11)

There are several reasons why the public hasbecome increasingly interested in effectivenessin the public sector:

Public services are increasing in number andcomplexity as society becomes more complex.The cost of providing public goods and ser-vices is rising; tax revenues are not growingat the same pace as demand for public ser-vices, especially critical public services likehealth and public safety; and there is morecompetition for the tax dollar.The public sector is increasingly required tofund services mandated by the public, leav-ing little money for discretionary services.Society is concerned with return on its invest-ment in services; similarly, society, throughthe political process, is increasingly inclinedto fund critical public services and to ignoreothers.The d 7.stinies of public organizations seem tobe tied more closely to a changing politicalscene, because decisions cannot be made froma solely analytical base.

These many forces, bearing heavily on theorganization's future, are the reasons for interestin goodness, and they are largely external. Insum, they amount to scarcity of resource and,consequently, increased competition. Society'sinterest in effectiveness is especially pronouncedin the public sector, where tax revenues fundproducts and services whose value is not testedby the market; and where one group (taxpay-ers) often pays for services used by another(beneficiaries). Fears of public sector waste area recurrent theme in the American public's

relationships to its government. Public decision-makers, such as city councils, county managers,budget authorities, voters, and corporatedonors, continually seek assurances that publicmoney is spent in a worthwhile way.

Society's interest in effectiveness naturallytriggers the manager's interest in effectiveness.Society hires the manager to run a good organi-zation. Part of the manager's job description istelling society how good the organization is.Also whetting the manager's interest in effec-tiveness is the fact that the use of strategic mar-keting has become a popular means for increas-ing organizational performance. The managerneeds to know how the organization is faringvis-a-vis the market and the competition, andthis calls for self-assessment and comparisonwith others in the environment.

Effectiveness is a concern because resources arescarce.

Although there are various meanings of"worthwhile spending," the governors (externaloverseers, such as elected and appointed offi-cials and trustees) and funders of librariesandin some cases the taxpayers who support theservicesincreasingly want more informationabout the impact of public programs and thedollars that support them. They want to knowthat:

the dollars have been spent responsibly;the programs are of value; andthey are funding an optimum, or at leastgood, mix of functions.

The twin matters of economy of operationand "value" both address the accountability ofthe organization to society.

These many reasons for the concern abouteffectiveness have become more compelling inrecent years. Responding to the pressures, pub-lic library leadership has acted to improve theassessment of library goodness, leading to atwenty-year effort to develop better means ofsetting direction for public libraries and assess-ing achievement. More of this in chapter 3.

Advances in information technology and ser-vices are going to mean that libraries haveincreasing opportunities to provide useful, inter-esting, and attractive, but costly, services. Quiteapart from other social and economic pressures,these developments will exacerbate the library'sscarcity problems. More and more may be done,with (probably) fixed or declining resources.

12

What Is Good? 7

Internal and external decision-makers will have tochoose how best to use the library's limited funds.

Approaches to EffectivenessThe management literature offers four mainapproaches to looking at effectiveness. Takentogether, they conjure a broad perspective andlead to a comprehensive idea of organizationaleffectiveness. The four approaches, or models,proclaim the multidimensionality of effective-ness and the validity of multiple viewpoints.The different approaches emphasize differentthings about the organization, posing, as it were,questions that might be asked when assessingan organization:

To what extent does the organization achieveits goals (input, process, output, or outcomegoals)?To what extent is the organization a healthyoperating unit?To what extent can the organization capturefrom the external environment the resourcesneeded to survive or thrive?To what extent are the various stakeholders'priorities met?

To the seasoned library manager, these ques-tions may seem obvious; but it is likely that mostmanagers emphasize one or another of them.

The questions are reflected in the descriptionsof the four major models of effectiveness found inthe management literature. The models providesome of the basis for developing a comprehen-sive framework of library effectiveness later inthis book.

Goal. The goal model views effectiveness interms of the organization's achievement ofspecific ends (Cameron 1981). It stressesoutputs and productivity, such as con-sumption of services and units of work perstaff member. "To what extent does theorganization achieve its goals?"

Process. The process model says that organiza-tions do not exist solely to attain their goals(Cameron 1981). They are also socialgroups seeking to survive and maintaintheir equilibrium. Thus, effectiveness ismeasured by internal processes and orga-nizational health (for instance, internalcommunication and degree of staffturnover) as well as by goal attainment."To what extent is the organization ahealthy operating unit?"

Systems resource. The systems resource modelemphasizes the organizaticn's need tosecure resources from its environment(Scott 1987). Relationships with externalresources and their controllerssuch asthose with power in the budgetary processor the ability to pass a tax referendumthus become the basis for judging effective-ness. "To what extent can the organizationcapture from the external environment(say, the funding body) the resourcesneeded to survive or thrive?"

Multiple constituencies. The multiple constituen-cies model is concerned with the organiza-tion's constituent groups (Zammuto 1984).It defines effectiveness as the degree towhich the needs and expectations of strate-gic constituencies, such as certain usergroups or leaders in the community, aremet. It differs from the systems resourcemodel in that the constituencies to be satis-fied are not necessarily the power elite. "Towhat extent are the various stakeholdershappy with the organization?"

The models emphasize different aspects ofthe organization's effectiveness. They should beseen as overlapping rather than contradictory.Different approaches may be appropriate underdifferent organizational circumstances. Differentconstituent groups of the same organization,and even different members of a constituentgroup, may adopt different approaches to evalu-ating an organization's effectiveness. Forinstance, a small stockholder may view Widget-corp's effectiveness in terms of payment ofshort-term dividends, while a large stockholdermay see it in terms of long-term market share.Moreover, a comprehensive framework of organi-zational assessment requiresif we accept theexperience reflected in the management litera-tureall four approaches.

An underlying theme of these approaches isthat there is no single definition of effectivenessfor an organization and no single person orgroup that defines it. There are multiple groupsto be satisfied (the multiple constituenciesapproach), external interests that control the crit-ical external resources needed (the systemsresource approach), activities inside the organi-zation that are vital in delivering products andservices (the process approach), and variousgoals pursued by the same organization (thegoals approach).

Effectiveness is largely a point of view.

13

8 What Is Good?

In addition to agreeing that effectiveness isa multidimensional concept, the managementliterature also has come to advocate that no sin-gle definition of or approach to organizationaleffectiveness is inherently most valid. The vari-ous viewpoints of an organization's effective-ness are all valid. Thus, representing the organi-zation's effectiveness fully can be a complexmatter. And thus, the manager must offer differ-ent representations of the organization's effec-tiveness in order to address that complexitythose various points of view and the manyfacets of the library organization.

If effectiveness is essentially a point of view,it is conceivable that there are as many views ofa single organization's effectiveness as there arepeople. But that doesn't help the library man-ager. There isn't time or money enough to iden-tify everyone's point of view. And the points ofview would be so many that they would cloudrather than clarify. The question for the librarymanager, then, is: Whose assessment matters?Whose goals and criteria, whose opinions, whosevision, does the manager listen and respond to?

A major aspect of library effectiveness is represent-ing the library to key stakeholders.

One useful answer is: the stakeholders whocan influence the organization's survivalthekey stakeholders. (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978). Theorganization has an internal life, of course, filledwith the activities of the working day that pro-duce the services and products that the cus-tomer consumes. But it also has an external lifethat is at least equally important, a context thatis political, economic, and social. Thus, an orga-nization's stakeholders will be found internallyand externally.

For the library manager, effectiveness is notonly a matter of running an effective organiza-tion. It is equally a matter of representing thelibrary's effectiveness to key stakeholdersthatis, assessing the library and communicating thatassessment. Representing it well means themanager has to identify the key stakeholders in

the library's future, determine their priorities,and decide how to speak to them.

ConclusionThis chapter has identified effectivenessitsmeasurement and its representationas a criti-cal issue for library managers. A number of defi-nitions or models of effectiveness exist in the lit-erature. We suggest that the most usefulapproach is not to pick among them, but to usethem all: to see the validity in each and to seethat, taken together, they suggest a broad defini-tion of effectiveness. Many people are involvedin assessing a library's effectiveness, whichmeans that offering many points of view is inthe best interests of the library manager.

The next chapter continues to look at the con-cept of effectiveness and how it relates to evalu-ation. Chapter 4 considers further the nature ofpublic sector organizationsand publiclibrariesand what that implies for statementsabout their effectiveness.

ReferencesCameron, Kim. 1981. "Domains of Organiza-

tional Effectiveness in Colleges and Universi-ties." Academy of Management Journal 24: 25-47.

Chase, Gordon, and Elizabeth C. Reveal. 1983.How to Manage in the Public Sector. Reading,Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

Heymann, Philip B. 1987. Politics of Public Man-agement. New Haven, Conn.: Yale UniversityPress.

Pfeffer, Jeffrey, and Gerald R. Salancik. 1978. TheExternal Control of Organizations. New York:Harper & Row.

Scott, W. Richard. 1987. Organizations: Rational,Natural, and Open Systems. Englewood Cliffs,N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Zammuto, Raymond F. 1984. "A Comparison ofMultiple Constituency Models of Organiza-tional Effectiveness." Academy of ManagementReview 9: 606-16.

Effectiveness andEvaluation

In which effectiveness is linked to such slippery ideasas evaluation, measurement, qualitative and quanti-tative evidence, and the "systems" way of looking atthings.

Measuring vs. EvaluatingEvaluation is the assessment of goodness. It con-sists of comparing the organization's currentperformance against some standard or set ofexpectations. Evaluation has two parts: the col-lection of information, or evidence, about theorganization's performance; and the comparisonof this information to some set of criteria. Thecollection of information is not in itself evalua-tion: a critical component of evaluation is theexercise of judgment in which criteria areapplied to the organization's current reality.

Evaluation = Judgment

The outcome of the evaluationthe conclu-sions reached about effectivenessdepends onboth the criteria and the evidence used. Thechoice of criteria is based on the decision-maker's definition of effectiveness: the differentapproaches described in chapter 1 often producediffering criteria. In the same way, differentpoints of view may produce different criteria.Some observers of the public library, for exam-ple, may place a priority on services to childrenand be particularly interested in criteria thatreflect this. Others may be more interested inservices to other groups from the community.

Evaluation can rest on a wide range of infor-mation. The goal, of course, is a reasonably accu-rate picture of the organization, and a variety ofevidence can be used to create this picture. The

15

rm.evidence can be quantitative or qualitative andsystematically or idiosyncratically derived.

Quantitative evidence is measurement data. Itcan be expressed in numbers, such as number ofcirculations, users, or materials. Qualitative evi-dence is more subjective and impressionistic andis unquantified. But it is no less validfor exam-ple, a visual assessment of the cleanliness ofphysical facilities or the overall helpfulness ofthe staff.

Surveys sometimes turn qualitative assess-ments quantitative. Instead of recording thehelpfulness impressions of one user or a fewselected users, you could survey the users sys-tematically, recording their helpfulness ratingson a scale from 1 (most helpful) to 5 (least help-ful). A mean friendliness rating of 1.3 does nothave an objective meaning like a mean ch cula-tion per user of 1.3 would have. That is, it has aqualitative basean opinion or impression offer-ed many times and counted (quantified).

Systematically collected evidence is intended toreflect a general realityall instances of a phe-nomenon (a census), such as a count of all circu-lation transactions, or a representative portion ofa phenomenon (a sample), such as a randomsample of circulation transactions. Opinion evi-dence that is systematically collected, as in a sur-vey of public opinion, can fulfill either the cen-sus or the sample functions as well as objectivenumeric data can.

Idiosyncratic evidence is collected so as toreflect particular points of view, like the opinionof the president of the board or the experiencesof a few new library users, not to reflect a gen-eral reality.

Whether quantitative or qualitative, system-atic or idiosyncratic, evidence is subjected to oneor more criteria. A criterion may be harda

9

10 Effectiveness and Evaluation

number, as embodied in an objective like "Wewant to achieve a circulation of 4.5 items percapita per year." Or it may be softan ambigu-ous value, such as "The online catalog should beeasy for the user to find things in." (How easy is"easy"?)

Evaluation = weighing evidence against criteria.

Evaluation is the process of holding evidenceagainst criteria (figure 1). "How does the actualcirculation per capita per year compare with ourobjective? Did we do well, or not?" "Were weable to make the online catalog easier to use?"

The important point is that evidence, how-ever hard or objective, does not make the judg-ment for you. Hard evidence may contribute toan evaluation of goodness, but it does not, initself, perform the evaluation (make the judg-ment). Both in formulating a quantified objective("generate 65,000 reference queries a year") andin determining the library's success on thatobjective, the act of judging has occurred. Set-ting the objective, or choosing the criteria,requires deciding what "good" is. Comparingevidence to the criteria is judging how good thelibrary is in one of its aspects or another. Thepurpose of evaluation is always the assessmentof how good.

This is true in evaluating the effectiveness of anorganization. The subjective act of judging is theessence of evaluating effectiveness. How good isthe library?

If, as we said in chapter 1, there is no singledefiner or judge of effectiveness for an organiza-tion, then evaluation requires communicationwith a multitude of constituent groups or stake-holders who have differing concerns, or criteria,and will make different judgments. Thus, inorder to communicate with the key stakehold-ers, one wants a broad and flexible idea of whichevaluative information is useful in describingthe library (the subject of chapter 6, "A Model ofPublic Library Effectiveness," and AMPLE it-self) and how to communicate to the particularstakeholder group (taken up in chapter 4, "TheNature of the Library Organization and Implica-tions for Effectiveness").

Evidence(data,

measures,statistics

information)

N

N

CriteriaEvaluation(judgment,

assessment)

Dimensions, Indicators, andMeasures of GoodnessSeveral key words are pivotal in discussingorganizational effectiveness. Unfortunately, vir-tually all are used with assorted meanings in theliterature and in conversation. In order to movethrough the rest of this book with reasonableease, it is necessary to stabilize them. The defini-tions that follow refer to figure 2, "Dimensions,Indicators, and Measures," and figure 3, "Dimen-sions, Indicators, and Measures Illustrated."

Effectiveness is goodness. It is equivalent to thequality of performance. In this book, effective-ness is applied to the organization as a whole;but, as mentioned in chapter 1, everything thatwill be presented can be adjusted for use at thesubunit level, such as children's services or tech-nical processing.

A dimension of effectiveness is a broad aspectof performance that is monitored in assessingeffectiveness. To take an example from anotherfield, three appropriate dimensions of effective-ness for a police department might be "crimeprevention," "community relations," and"departmental efficiency" (Jobson and Schneck1982; In public libraries, dimensions of effec-tiveness might include "information delivery,""community relations," "access to services," or"administrative processes."

A dimension, in turn, is made up of morespecific items of effectiveness, called indicators.An indicator of the dimension "crime preven-tion" might be "crime rate." An indicator of thelibrary dimension "access to services" mightbe"adequacy of parking"; an indicator of thedimension "administrative processes" might be"written policies."

The indicator becomes concrete when trans-lated into a measure of effectiveness. The indicator

Figure I. Evidence, Criteria, Evaluation Figure 2. Dimensions, Indicators, and Measures

16

Effectiveness and Evaluation 11

ServiceDimension:

Service Offerings

Indicator:Newness of

materials

V

Indicator:Range ofservices

Measure:Median publication

date

Measures:Number of Innovativeservices program ofoffered services

Figure 3. Dimensions, Indicators, and MeasuresIllustrated

suggests a concept on which to focus a review ofeffectiveness; the measure offers a specificmeans (measure, scale, data element) by whichto gain that focus. To be used as evidence ofeffectiveness, an indicator must be turned into ameans by which the organization may bedescribed. Thus, a measure of the indicator"adequacy of parking" might be the number ofparking spaces or user satisfaction with parkingaccommodations; and a measure of the indicator"extent to which policies are written" might bethe number of pages of written service policy ora list of topics on which the library has formallyadopted policies.

A major fallibility of a measure, no matterhow quantitative or "objective," is that it is notthe thing itself, but a metaphor. "Shades" is ametaphor for sunglasses. "Rock" is a metaphorfor the hard lumpy grey thing over there. An IQscore is a metaphor for intelligence. A measure ofeffectiveness is a metaphor for the actual effec-tiveness of an organization. At best, it approxi-

It is better to be roughly right than exactly wrong.(Koenig 1980, 39)

mates the thing it represents. It stands for thething, but is not the thing, as circulation countstands for actual circulation, or as number ofparking spaces stands for adequacy of parking.

The measure is rarely perfect. That is, there israrely a one-to-one match between the measureand what one wants to measure. There is almostalways a discrepancy between the measure andreality, or between the measure and the thingone wants to measure. A measure like circula-tion count is very close in concept to the realthing, actual circulation. However, flaws incounting regularly lead to inaccuracies in the

count; and the measure thus becomes discrepantwith actual circulation. In contrast, number ofparking spaces explains only part of the conceptof "adequacy of parking." Thus, the measureand the thing itself are discrepant, regardless ofthe accuracy of count. It is humbling, but realis-tic, to assume that measures are flawed and toaccept that as a challenge for improvement.

Ultimately, we would like to know whatcauses effectiveness; what actions bring abouteffectiveness? These are determinantsthe thingsthat make an organization better than it wasbefore, or better than another organization.Managers investigate determinants and makeassumptions about them all the time.Researchers do too. They try to discover thethings that influence the indicators and mea-sures of effectiveness. For example, does thetraining of a librarian influence the quality ofreference service? Does the amount of moneyspent on new materials influence the number ofpeople using the library? Does the form of citygovernment affect the tax base of the library?Some determinants are things that managers canmanipulate to bring aboutor try to bringaboutimprovement, such as circulation loanperiod. Some are not manipulable, such as theethnic mix of a neighborhood.

While determinants is critical in the chain ofeffectiveness concepts, there is little researchthat has established the determinants of effec-tiveness in libraries. Therefore, we concentratein this book on indicators and measures andleave determinants to the wisdom of the localpractitioner or manager and to future research.

Evaluating through Numbersand through StoriesFor the past 15 years, the public library field hasconcentrated on developing objective measuresthat embrace service consumption and servicequality. The aim was to quantify library "prod-ucts" in a meaningful way, to describe librariesin quantitative terms related to what they accom-plished, rather than what resources (includinghuman) were used up. The focus was on mea-sures, numbers, counts, tallieson how manyitems (books, journals, programs, etc.) wereavailable and how many items were consumed(borrowed, attended, located, etc.) by the users.This focus produced an important advance, inthat it offered a fairly comprehensive package ofquantified outputs to the field.

17


The whole picture of library goodness requires botha paint-by-numbers approach and impressionism.

However, an additional insight emerged inthe course of The Public Library EffectivenessStudy. In our talks with library directors, localofficials, and some community leaders, itbecame clear that, while numbers are necessaryand useful, something else may be as com-pelling in representing the library to externalstakeholders: anecdotes, or stories of organiza-tional achievement. These are essentially storiesof impact that the library has achieved in thepast year: teaching the skill of reading aloud toan indigent young mother; providing the infor-mation on trash removal innovations that influ-enced city council legislation. Indeed, the storycan be negative as well as positive, such as theimpact of inadequate book funds on one stu-dent's homework.

We learned that representing the library'sgoodness is not limited to numbers. Stories mayhave as much impact on decision-makers asdata. Perhaps more. This idea will be developedin chapter 7, where using data and stories intalking to stakeholders is discussed.

Evaluating via the GeneralSystems ModelIn considering organizations and their goodness,a useful framework is the general systemsmodel. In fact, this framework has been used inguiding most evaluation efforts. The open sys-tems model of effectiveness, which was dis-cussed in chapter 1, springs from the generalsystems model. We take a slight pause here inorder to put the process of evaluation in context,using the general systems model.

The general systems model has been used fordecades to describe the components of systemsof all types and levels, ranging from the systemcalled the Milky Way to the . ystem called alibrary to the system called your left big toe.

At its simplest level, a system is a nexus ofinteracting elements. The major pieces of a sys-tem are:

inputs, the resources that are needed to sup-port the system (such as the nutrients neededfor a human cell, or library revenues);processes, the activities that transform theinputs to outputs (such as metabolism, or thelibrary's book preparation activities);outputs, the product of the system (such asheat from the metabolic process, or librarycirculation);outcomes, the impact of the system's outputson the external environment (such as c wthof the toe, or the library's impact on individ-ual or community);feedback, the means whereby informationrelated to output or outcome is "fed back"into the input or the process stage of the sys-tem, for purposes of correction (such as lackof oxygen, or the community's response to alibrary program); andenvironment, the context within which thesystem existsan environment that provideseconomic and material resources, markets,political forces, technologies, competitors,and the like (such as a whole foot and its sur-rounding shoe, or the political, economic, andsocial elements that surround the library).

The model is arranged as shown in figure 4.

The Environment

The System

Input O.- Process *. Output Outcome

Feedbacklif

Figure 4. The General Systems Model

The systems model is a major tool for analyz-ing virtually any system in virtually any disci-plinefrom medical research to thermodynamicsto futurology to information delivery mecha-nisms- -since it lets you see the system in terms ofinteractions among its main component parts:raw materials (input), transformations of theseraw materials (process), resulting products andtheir consumption (output) and their effects (out-come), and information about these things thatsustains and improves the system (feedback).

In viewing an organization, one would like tosee all parts of the system. However, outputs

18

Effectiveness and Evaluation 13

and outcomes pose exceptional problems. Theyare the least easily observed of all the elementsof the system. They are often a product of notjust the system under study, but other, some-times unknown, factors which may be farremoved from the system in time and place. Forinstance, a branch library's rate of circulationmay relate more to the educational level of thecommunity than to the policies or practices ofthe library. In the case of many public sectororganizations, such as libraries, the desired out-comes, such as the nature of impact on the indi-vidual or community, are often not even articu-lated. Thus, there are no criteria against which tohold evidence, and no suggestion of which evi-dence to collect.

Using a library to illustrate the elements of thegeneral systems model, one can broadly identify:

inputs: money, staff, materials, and physicalplant;processes: staff, machine, and building activi-ties;outputs: services, materials, and facilities con-sumed; andoutcomes: use of information; change in theclient or community.

See figure 5.Feedback can occur in the form of measures

of output or outcome that are used, for instance,to make changes in budget or staffing requests(input) or in the continuing education of staff orhandling of reference inquiries (process). Feed-back also comes in non-quantitative forms, suchas letters from users, patrons' conversationswith library staff, live reactions to library pre-sentations at community meetings, and so on.

The systems model offers a simple frameworkfor analyzing an organization's effectiveness in acomprehensive way. It can serve almost as achecklist of the various broad areas to considerin evaluating and communicating effectiveness.To the extent that an organizationa libraryis assessing and communicating its effective-

( Input-3- Process--> Output--0- OutcomeMoneyStaff

MaterialsPhysical

\.. plant

Staff activity Services Change in theMachine activity consumed lite of the clientBuilding activity Products

consumed

EnvironmentLibrary impact on

community

Figure 5. The Systems View of the Library

19

ness in all of the four system areas, the organ-ization is more likely to be representing its effec-tiveness fully.

Employing the systems approach, Orr (1973)presents a useful conception of how the variousaspects of organizational performance relate toeach other in libraries. In figure 6, adapted fromOrr, the "quality" of resources (i.e., quantity ofdollars) and organizational effort (capability) arerelatedalbeit looselyto the value of servicesdelivered.

Quality-1 Value

Resources--). bilityJ. UtilizationO. Beneficial Effects

Demand

Figure 6. The Orr Model of Input and Output

However, the links among resources, quality,and value are neither direct nor obvious.Libraries have always been required to demon-strate that they are operating at the lowest possi-ble cost, or at a reasonable cost, or at least hon-estly. Historically, the watchful eyes of thefunders and controllers of the public library (cityhall, trustees, taxpayers, etc.) have been trainedon the spending of the resources because this isthe most measurable element of Orr's model.There has been much less focus on quality orvalue of what the library delivers, at least in partbecause this is so much harder to measure. Inour years of interviewing library managers wehave seen more than one public library boardthat interprets its job as protecting the taxpayerfrom tax increases, rather than achieving good(quality, or valuable) library services. And wehave seen modestly funded libraries achievehigh performance.

In part, the lack of accounting for quality andvalue results from the difficulty of knowingwhat quality and value are. The term "value,"alone, could be interpreted in several ways:

positive impact on the individual user,positive political visibility,positive social impact, andpositive economic impact.

The systems model is useful for a first look ateffectiveness. But it is coarsegrained. As we willfind out later, a finer grained framework will beneeded to set the library on the road to full rep-resentation of its goodness.


ConclusionEvaluation, then, is the exercise of judgment inwhich evidence of organizational performance iscompared to criteria. The evidence used may beof many types, as may be the criteria. A dimen-sion of effectiveness is a broad aspect of an orga-nization's performance that is monitored indoing evaluation. A dimension is made up ofone or more indicators. An indicator becomesconcrete when operationalized by a measure.Measures are rarely perfect representations oftheir indicators and dimensions. And we shouldnot limit ourselves to quantitative data; qualita-tive information and anecdotes can be usefuland persuasive.

The general systems model gives us a way to

evaluate the relationship among the componentsof the organization and between the organiza-tion and its environment.

ReferencesJobson, J. D., and Rodney Schneck. 1982. "Con-

stituent Views of Organizational Effective-ness: Evidence from Police Organizations."Academy of Management Journal 25: 25-46.

Koenig, Michael E. D. 1980. Budgeting Techniquesfor Libraries and Information Centers. NewYork: Special Libraries Association, 39.

Orr, Richard H. 1973. "Measuring the Goodnessof Library Services: A General Framework forConsidering Quantitative Measures." Journalof Documentation 29, no. 3: 315-32.

Advances on theGoodness Questionin LibrariesWherein is shown how the public library field hastaken steps to improve the way libraries assess andcommunicate goodness. The steps include strategicplanning, measurement, personnel appraisal, andbudgeting systems.

Thinkers about general management haveadvanced the degree to which organizationaleffectiveness can be represented. They have cre-ated tools that directly or indirectly speak togoodnesstools that help management to:

set direction, for the long or short term, andcontrol movement in that direction.

The tools relate to money, the future, andpeople: budgeting, planning, managing person-nel, andmost directly to the point of assessingeffectivenessmeasuring. While their ultimatepurpose is to make the organization more effec-tive, they are also used to represent the organiza-tion's effectiveness.

Public library management, too, has devel-oped a repertoire of tools that help set directionand control organizational activities. The ma-jor advances have come in planning and mea-surement. Important, though lesser, advanceshave occurred in a number of other areas; forthis book, budgeting and performance appraisalare singled out to illustrate tools that weredesigned for directing and controlling, but arealso useful in assessing and communicatingeffectiveness.

In both general management and public li-brary management, the tools that have beendeveloped are only partial answers to the good-ness question, for they each tend to representthe organization in a particular way (spending,goals, personnel, and so on). To this extent, theyoffer limited views of goodness. Taken together,they begin to create a patchwork picture of the

21

loworganization. The purpose of this book is to offera more comprehensive view.

Planning and MeasurementBefore the 1970s, the explicit criteria by whichthe effectiveness of many public libraries wasjudged consisted of national standards: a publiclibrary should have so many volumes per capita,have so many dollars per capita, offer so manyservice hours per week, and so on. The last set ofnational standards for U.S. public libraries wasissued by the Public Library Association (1967).Portentously, the introduction to the 1967 edi-tion indicated that such standards neededrethinking and a new approach.

Thus was launched a concerted movement to"localize" the standards by which publiclibraries are evaluated, to establish locally the cri-teria by which libraries are judged. This hastranslated into two main thrusts:

planning andmeasuring achievement in terms of the plan.

More specifically, the movement for localdetermination of library goodness, beginning inthe early 1970s and continuing into the presentday, embraces:

assessing the local community needs (pre-planning);developing a concrete set of objectives andstrategies for meeting those needs (planning);andmeasuring the achievement of those objec-tives.

The localization movement became the majoragenda item of the Public Library Association in

15

16 Advances on the Goodness Question

the mid-1970s and continues in its prominencetoday. The movement sought simple and flexi-ble aids to planning and measurement. Itappears to have succeeded. As this workevolved, a broad professional consensus devel-oped. The result has been widespread accep-tance by the public library community of theneed to plan and measure (and, subsequently,evaluate) for the local situation.

In the next few pages, we will treat planningand measurement in reverse order, to show thehistoric line of the two developments.

MeasurementFor decades, a premise that underlay muchmanagement thought and research was thatsomewhere out there was a relatively simplemeasureprobably uniform, universal, and uni-facetedthat would describe the effectivenessof organizations, generally; and that enoughresearch and thought should reveal what it was;and more research and thought would revealhow to attain it. If there weren't a simple effec-tiveness measure for all organizations, there wasprobably a simple one for all organizations of agiven typelibraries, for example, or at least allpublic libraries. Thousands of publicationsacross a range of fields over the last severaldecades bear witness to the search for whatmight be called the "Grail of Goodness."

The library profession joined the crusade. Thequest for the Grail of Library Goodness (Buck-land 1988] has resulted in thousands of publica-tions and unpublished in-house reports thatsought better ways of des cr- king library effec-tiveness. These writings have often obscured theessential point: What is the essence of thelibrary? To choose a measure of success requiresfirst a definition of successi.e., of effectiveness.

The writings have included:

use and user studies;cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses;reports of library statistics;

evaluations of library collections;works on measurable objectives and outputmeasures;

statements on library standards;writings on planning for libraries;debates about the essential public library pur-pose; andproposals for alternative budget systems.

All of this literature has aimed to describe thegoodness of the library in one way or another.

Obviously, there has been a wide variety ofapproaches to and measures of effectiveness.

In recent years, however, it has slowlydawned on the writers and readers of the man-agement literature that the Grail of Goodnessmay be like the original Graila compelling,shimmering illusion. The idea of effectivenesshas matured. It is now seen as situational,organic, multifaceted, and a point of view.

The library field has echoed the managementfield in proliferating articles and reports oneffectiveness. The mass of library publicationssuggests that library goodness is not likely to bereflected in a single all-purpose measure; that ithas many facets, or dimensions; that it is notlikely to be defined in the same way for alllibraries, or even for all libraries of a given type;and that it may be defined differently for eachdifferent interest group.

Measures and the Systems Model

For most of the history of public libraries in theUnited States, the focus on goodness has beenprimarily at the input end of the system. Othermeasures used by library managers fell into theinput and process categories, fewer into output,and even fewer (that is, none) into outcome. To alarge extent, this is because it is universally eas-ier to measure inputs and processes, and muchharder to measure outputs and outcomes. Par-ticularly in service organizations, it is difficult todevelop m2asures of output or outcome, for ser-vices are often not tangible, have uncertain andflexible beginning and ending points, and areunclear as to the value received by the user ofthe service.

Figure 7, the Systems View of the Library inGreater Detail, illustrates the systems modelwith examples that fit a public library.

In the mid-1970s, some librarians began to dosomething about this imbalance. The first practi-cal attempt came from DeProspo, Altman, andBeasley. Their Performance Measures for PublicLibraries (1973) proposed a set of feasible mea-sures of library service. The companion volume(Altman and others 1976), gave detailed instruc-tions for the library wishing to implement themeasures. For the first time, libraries had accessto the keystone of the planning-and-measure-ment structure: Measures of output. The authorsoffered the local library a relatively simple wayof looking at output and service quality, withoutthe pain of inventing and testing the measuresthemselves.

22

Advances on the Goodness Question

Input Process Output -30- OutcomeMoney Staff activity Services consumed Change in theStaff Machine activity Products consumed life of the client

Materials Building activity or customerPhysical plant

Number of staff Number of titles Number of questions Increase in communityTraining of staff cataloged asked informedness

Total operating revenue Number of overdue Number of questions Improvement inTotal capital expenditure notices sent answered quality of users'Number of volumes held Number of seats Number of items decision-making

Number of volumes added available for use circulated User satisfactionSquare footage Proportion of volumes Speed of answers with service

Square footage/capita on the shelves/owned to questions

EnvironmentLibrary Impact on

community

Figure 7. The Systems View of the Library in Greater Detail

DeProspo and others built directly onresearch that was done at the University ofPennsylvania. That research, by Hamburg andothers (1972), sought a single, simple measure ofoutput that reduced the mission and perfor-mance of public and academic libraries to theiressence, namely, exposing people to recordedinformation. The resulting measure was an esti-mate of how much exposure clients were likelyto have derived from using a library. It wascalled "item-use-day."

Hamburg and others succeeded in isolating asingle measure, but it was not simple. It didreduce the mission and activities of the library toa universal essence, but the measure was diffi-cult or impossible for most library managersto apply. The Hamburg search for the Grail ofLibrary Goodness did not quite reach its objective.

The DeProspo report was easier to use, but itfailed to engage the attention of the averagepublic librarian. The measures and instructionsstill may have been too complex, and the fieldmay not have been primed sufficiently to adoptthe burden of measurement, however simple.But leaders among public library managers wereimpressed, and 1982 saw a second attempt tocreate a measurement manual: Output Measuresfor Public Libraries (OMPL) (Zweizig and Rodger1982). A more readable work, with quite trans-parent measures, OMPL was adopted by manylibraries across the country, and the improve-ments of the second edition (Van House and oth-ers 1987) solidified the popularity of the outputmeasures approach to evaluating public librarygoodness.

OMPL implies that measurement and, ulti-mately, evaluation are necessary elements in

23

running an effective library. From their wideadoption of it, public library managers seem toagree. By virtue of its emphasesmeasures ofoutput, as opposed to input or processesOMPL implies that service is what matters most.

Twelve years later, Output Measures for PublicLibrary Service to Children (OMC) was published(Walter 1992). It parallels OMPL to a largeextent, while adding data elements that are par-ticular to service to children.

In addition to OMPL, other public librarymeasurement efforts are under way. The PublicLibrary Data Service (PLDS) is an annual cumu-lation and analysis of output measures andother data from a self-selected set of libraries,nationwide (Public Library Association 1990).The output measures of OMPL, selected inputmeasures, and occasional special data elementsare collected, tabulated, and reported annually.Libraries report their data voluntarily.

In OMPL and PLDS, the manager has avail-able a nationally accepted and reported set ofmeasures of output of public libraries, someinnovative, some traditional. OMPL adds to theperennial output measure, circulation, such oth-ers as Reference Fill Rate, Author/Title Fill Rate,and In-Library Use, providing a more nearlycomplete depiction of how the library touchesits users. Public libraries can now paint a moredetailed picture of what the library producesfrom its inputs, or resourcesa more accurateassessment of how much the community is get-ting for its tax dollar. The result is a more bal-anced assessment of the system called library.On the specific topic of service to youth, OMCpromises the same advancement in measurementand may come to enjoy the same wide acceptance.

17


A recent enterprise, the Federal-State Cooper-ative Data Service (FSCS), coordinates the collec-tion of public library data at the state and thenational levels. The data elements (measures)are traditional ones, emphasizing inputs andprocesses, such as "Public Service Hours PerWeek" and "FTE Employees" (Task Force 1989).

In FSCS, the public library manager has anational reporting network for traditional inputand process data on libraries. The FSCS systempromises to deliver data on almost the total cen-sus of public libraries in the United States, andto do it in a timely manner.

Important parts of the goodness questionquantitative and, to a lesser degree, qualitativeassessment of selected outputshave beenanswered. But many remain.

As public library managers become accus-tomed to using output measures, thanks toOMPL, many see a need for more and differentmeasures that reflect other aspects of the library,that reflect local objectives, needs, and criteriamore directly, and that speak more directly tolocal decision-makers and stakeholders.

PlanningSetting strategic direction for an organizationalso known as long-range planning, strategicplanning, and "comprehensive rational plan-ning" (Molz 1990)has become increasinglyimportant in organizations of all types and hasbeen a driving concern among many publiclibrary managers for nearly two decades.

The purpose of strategic planning is to directan organization successfully into the futuretodetermine its mission, goals, and objectives, or a"vision of success" (Bryson 1988) and to estab-lish the means by which it will get there. Theprocess and the resulting document (the plan)direct the organization's behavior. And then theorganization's effectiveness is judged by com-paring its accomplishments with its plan: "Didwe achieve what we planned? How effective arewe, in terms of our vision?"

The formal planning process is the means bywhich the organization (1) sets its direction forthe future, (2) establishes the criteria by which itwill judge itself, and (3) designs the actionsneeded to succeed.

In the planning process, evaluation of organi-zational effectiveness is ultimately a question ofhow well the organization matches its vision ofsuccess. Certain products of formal planning canbe used in evaluating the organization's effec-

tiveness more explicitly, namely, objectives.Objectives contain explicit criteria against whichevaluations can be made. In the ideal, they arebased on quantitative measures (for instance,"register x% of the adult population"). Withquantitative measures, the degree of success inachieving an objectivethat is, goodnesscanbe assessed unambiguously. The organization'sstrategies may be altered if they prove not to besuccessful, as determined by looking at theobjectives and measures together.

The first planning manual for public librari-ans grew directly out of the localization move-ment among the public library leadership. APlanning Process for Public Libraries (Palmour,Bellasai, and DeWath) appeared in 1980. It wasrevised substantially and reincarnated in Plan-ning and Role Setting for Public Libraries (PRSPLMcClure and others 1987). PRSPL providesguidance in assessing community needs for pub-lic library service; offers a set of standard rolesfrom which a public library might choose inbuilding its broad statement of mission; andtakes the reader through the steps of a formalstrategic planning process. The second edition ofthe measures volume, OMPL, is explicitly linkedto the planning manual, to form a coordinatedset of recipes for planning and measurement.

Planning and Evaluation

The two manuals approach planning and mea-surement in a traditional way and are based onsome standard assumptions:

First, that the library can identify a unified setof goals and objectives that are to be opti-mized.

Second, that there is sufficient constancy inthe library and its environment for long-term planning to make sense.

Third, that the library can identify and mea-sure at least its major outputs.

Fourth, that decisions about resource alloca-tion are made at least in part rationally,based on data.

Fifth, that the library has some control overits outputs and outcomes.

Sixth, that the evaluation system affects deci-sions about the library's direction, objec-tives, and strategies. What the organizationknows and pays attention to shapes thejudgments and choices that are made.

Seventh, that planning and measurementdepend to some degree on the political

24

Advances on the Goodness Question 19

process, which involves multiple stake-holder groups.

Any management tool can be misused ifapplied too zealously, without regard for its lim-its. In the last ten years or so, a number ofrespected management analysts have criticizedformal goals-based planning in one respect oranother, and have proposed alternatives (Mo lz1990). One of the most eminent writers,Mintzberg (1989), warns against monolithicdevotion to formal strategic planning. He claimsthat it is analytic rather than synthetic, that it"decomposes" the broad direction of the organi-zation into specific objectives and particularmeans for achieving themusually evaluatedusing hard dataand that, therefore, it tends toproduce "incremental adaptations rather thaninnovative breakthroughs" (Mintzberg 1989, 72).It shows a concern for the trees rather than theforest. The result can be an organizationalagenda that is rigid, detailed, and unimagina-tive; often correct, in the micro and wrong in themacro aspects of the organization's management.

Mintzberg proposes an additional type ofdirection-setting, one which permits "synthesis"of the organization's strengths with environ-mental realities and which allows intuition, cre-ativity, and inspiration in the planning process.He claims that this format is more likely to resultin innovative direction for the organization.Moreover, he says that both the synthetic and ana-lytic approaches are necessarythe former toachieve Bryson's vision of success, the latter tocontrol activity in the direction of that vision.

What are the implications of all this for assess-ing and communicating library effectiveness?

That the organization cannot substitute analy-sis for a good vision of success.That the library's method of representingitself must speak to both the vision and thespecific objectives and strategies by which thelibrary achieves the vision.That innovation may well arise from unex-pected information about the library's perfor-mance, its users, or its community and envi-ronment.That the planning process itself generates aneed for added information, as questionsarise about how well the library is doing.That the planning process results, in part, inthe design of the library's evaluation sys-tem: The goals and objectives define the crite-ria and measures by which some evaluationtakes place.

And vice versa, that the evaluation systemdirects decision-makers' attention and helpsthem define the goals and objectives.That the ability of data to reflect organiza-tional reality is limited. Therefore, evaluationcannot be restricted to quantifiable informa-tion. The complete picture requires a multi-tude of representations, information that isboth quantitative and qualitative, and infor-mation that tells how successful the library isin achieving a particular objective (for in-stance, increasing usership by 20 percent) aswell as achieving a general vision (forinstance, becoming a valued gateway to infor-mation for municipal officials). Both data andstories will be required to paint the wholelibrary picture.

BudgetingBudgets are an essential way of representing anorganization's effectiveness. Although the bud-get, strictly speaking, is a projection of thelibrary's economic futurea contract for spend-ingit becomes a report of expenditures, in ret-rospect, a record of past spending. The recordprovides funders and governors of the servicewith information about the return on theirinvestment (goodness achieved) for makingcomparisons across organizational units or costcenters.

The simplest budget format is the lump-sum,or memo-type, budget. It consists simply of allo-cating an amount of money to an activity (orga-nization), with no specification as to how or whythe money is to be spent. This form of budgetsimply asserts that the organization will spendan allocation of money. Many assumptions areembedded in this approach: that the organiza-tion is producing the right products or services;that it is doing so with acceptable efficiency; thatit addresses the right markets; and that itreaches the right customers in sufficient num-bers. In short, that it is good. (A contrastingassumption is that even more complex budgi. l-ing systems do not adequately account for expen-ditures and outputs and that this approach isadopted out of despair for all others.)

In fact, the weakness of the lump-sum budgetin controlling and representing goodness is whymost organizations, including libraries, haveabandoned such a budget format for more com-plex ones.

The drive toward greater accountability inorganizations requires a sharper representation

25


of effectiveness and has led to budgeting inno-vations. Formats have evolved to express theorganization's effectiveness more completely.The new formats have allowed the budget togrow from an instrument that dwelt single-mindedly on inputs to one that includes out-puts. A budget can now make statements aboutthe transformation of input (resource) to output(consumed service), not just the consumption ofinput. Greater accountability of the organizationis the goal. Some proposed formats--althoughextremely difficult to implementhave blendedelements of strategic planning, evaluating, andcosting into a mighty management machine thatintegrates goals, costs, outputs, and measures ofservice. Such budget formats are complex instru-ments of planning and control.

The line-item budget, the most common format,shows the costs of specific input categories oritems, such as staff salaries and benefits, sup-plies, operation of the physical plant, librarymaterials, and the like. The line-item budgetspecifies budgetary inputs to the organization,but shows no relationship to the processes withinthe organization or to its outputs. It presentsexpenditures more finely than the lump-sumbudget. And it is possible to use the informationin more interesting waysfor instance, compar-ing materials expenditure and staff expenditure.Still, it specifies nothing other than inputs.

The program budget shows the costs of broadprograms of activity, such as technical services,circulation, reference, administrative services, orpublic relations. It attempts to link input (moneyspent) to process (organizational activity) so thatbudgeting is more closely tied to the organiza-tion's functioning.

The performance budget displays the costs ofbroad programs of activity as well as the levelsof program performance to be achieved duringthe budget periodfor instance, "process 3,000new titles during the year" and "handle 10,000reference questions per reference librarian dur-ing the year." Performance levels are specifiedfor each program of activity, which may beeither internal processes or products (outputs) ofthe library.

The Planning, Programming, and Budgeting Sys-tem (PPBS) incorporates objectivesparticularlyproduct/service objectivesof the organization,linked to alternative means of achieving the objec-tives, to measures by which to evaluate the degreeof success in achieving the objectives, and, ofcourse, to costs of achieving the objectives. Thiscomplex form of budgeting brings output objec-

tives, measures, money, and aspects of strategicplanning (objectives and alternatives, especially)together. The effectiveness picture that PPBSpaints is primarily one of benefit-for-costhowmuch benefit is received for what cost. The com-plexity of this budget format, the expense ofhonoring all of its requirements, and the need tobe almost spiritually in tune with its premiseand all of its interlocking elements caused it tocollapse from its own weight. Not many yearsafter PPBS's adoption as the federal govern-ment's budgeting bible, it was abandoned (Molz1990). Few organizations use it today.

The zero-based budget (ZBB) shows programbundles, alternative possible levels of programachievement, and the related costs. In essence,ZBB offers (1) alternative levels of effectivenessand of funding to the funding authorities and (2)when last year's spending and accomplishmentsare reviewed, a comparison of actual effectivenessin each program area to the levels of effective-ness that might have been achieved with less, ormore, funding. Some variations on ZBB haveincluded performance measures.

As it did to most life forms, evolution madethe simple budget format complex. ZBB is socomplex that very few libraries, if any, use it inits full form, if we can assume that a sample of15 libraries in the mid-80s is still somewhat rep-resentative today (Koenig and Alperin 1985).But we could speculate from the same data thata number of libraries are probably using somemodification of it todayperhaps as many asone-third, according to that study. PPBS is evenmore complex, and its extinction seems evenmore certain, perhaps a fait accompli. Koenigand Alperin indicated that none of the 15libraries had even tried it. Used or not, the twoformats show how budgeting mechanisms havebeen invented to give more complete represen-tations of effectiveness.

In a recent best-selling book, Osborne andGaebler (1992) describe several entrepreneurialalternatives to budgeting. They are offered asimprovements on most current public-sectorbudgeting methods which, according to Os-borne and Gaebler, are not tied to results andencourage waste (particularly the spend-it-or-lose-it rule common to most public budgets). Asummary of Osborne's and Gaebler's alterna-tives follows.

1. Mission-driven budgeting eliminates lineitems, minimizes rules, and maximizes flexi-bility. In its simplest manifestation, budgets

26


are formula- driven. Each department getslast year's appropriation, with an incrementfor inflation and population growth. Moneythat isn't spent by the end of the fiscal yearcan be kept, giving units an incentive to savemoney and the resources to test new ideasand respond to changing circumstances.

2. Output budgeting focuses on outputs of ser-vices. It defines and measures mission andoutputs. Funding may or may not be tieddirectly to output volume. When it is, legis-lators base their decisions on the levels ofservice that they want to achieve.

3. Outcome budgeting focuses on quality ofoutcome of services produced, not just vol-ume. Outcome is measured; funding may ormay not be tied to the levels and quality ofoutcome achieved. When it is, again legisla-tors base their decisions on the levels of ser-vice that they want to achieve.

4. Customer-driven budgeting puts control ofthe budget in the hands of the consumerthrough vouchers, cash grants, and fundingsystems that allocate a dollar amount foreach person served.

The authors discuss the circumstances underwhich each of these approaches may or may notbe appropriate, and their strengths and limita-tions. What is important is that each of theseapproaches, like the "evolved" budget formsdiscussed earlier, is an attempt to connect moreclosely the funds expended and the resultsachieved, and in addition seeks to create incen-tives for public organizations to maximize theyield on their expenditures.

Budget formats have evolved from input- tooutput-oriented, from simple statements ofresource to be expended toward statementscomplex enough "to inspire rational choicesfrom among alternative courses of action" (Molz1990, 48). To this extent, the latter-day formatsresult in richer statements about an organiza-tion's effectiveness. Budgeting is a political pro-cess, and the newer budgeting formats areintended to represent the organization's effec-tiveness more comprehensively, showing at thesame time the relationship between input, pro-cess, output/outcome, and the environment(Wildaysky 1968).

All of these more complex methods are aimedat clarifying for decision-makers the services oroutputs that they are "buying" with budget allo-cations. In doing so, they highlight the need todefine and measure the organization's effective-

ness to ensure that it is producing the right out-puts and maximizing the yield from its resources.

Appraising IndividualPerformanceEven libraries that don't appraise organization-level effectiveness generally do appraise indi-vidual performance, as a result of the growinglegal complexities of the entire area of person-nel. Performance appraisal addresses individualrather than organizational effectiveness. In itsmore contemporary forms, performanceappraisal parallels at the individual level someaspects of organization-level strategic planningand measurement. Thus, it also deals with effec-tiveness. Two methods are especially worthmention: MBO and BARS.

Management by Objectives (MBO) is amethod of directing individual effort and assess-ing individual effectiveness against explicit per-formance objectives and measures of achieve-ment. It is parallel in these respects to formalstrategic planning. In its simplest form, itamounts to periodic discussions betweenemployee and employer in which employee per-formance is evaluated against concrete, oftenquantified, objectives (e.g., "make 600 studentslibrary-literate in six months") and new objec-tives are set for the next evaluation period. MBOis focused on the. employee's "output" effective-nessthe extent to which the employee has per-formed effectivelyand emphasizes resultsrather than effort.

Although MBO is not being used, per se, bymany library organizations (Molz 1990), it hasinfluenced personnel practice in many librariesas well as other public sector organizationsbecause of its emphasis on specific employeeachievement.

An alternative to MBO is the behaviorallyanchored rating scale (BARS), a more recentinvention. In part, BARS arose because achieve-ment of effect in many areas is difficult to assess.For instance, one can easily count the number ofstudents a librarian instructs in library skills, butit is more difficult to assess the degree to whichskills were learned. In such a case, one may turnto BARS, wherein the employee's behaviors,rather than achievement, are assessedsuch asthe number of people given bibliographicinstruction or, in the reference function, theemployee's number of questions answered,

27


manner of interaction with the user, skill atnegotiating a question, and so forth. BARS isfocused on the employee's "processes."

In many organizations, especially public sec-tor organizationsincluding public librariesitmay be desirable to use both methods in combi-nation. One would appraise the achievement ofactual output where possible and, lacking that,the achievement of desirable behaviors. Schneierand Beatty (1979) offer a means for merging thetwo performance appraisal methods. The viewof individual effectiveness is not clearly focused

one aspect or another, but on a mixture:behaviors here, outputs there. There is anacknowledged unevenness in such an appraisal.The caution, when talking about organization-level effectiveness, is that it is not equatable withindividual effectiveness. Summing up individ-ual employee effectiveness does not necessarilyoffer an accurate picture of organization effec-tiveness. Conceivably, an organization withemployees appraised as effective could be, as awhole, ineffectivethe employees doing goodjobs individually, but the wrong jobs in terms ofwhat the customer needs or wants.

ConclusionA number of management tools have beendeveloped to help libraries assess and representtheir effectiveness. The most notable are Plan-ning and Role Setting for Public Libraries and Out-put Measures for Public Libraries, which have beenwidely adopted. These both take a goal-basedapproach, which, as we have seen, is only one ofseveral possible approaches, and imply a set ofassumptions about decision-making that maynot always hold.

Related management tools include budgetingand performance evaluation. Both are used toassess and control organizational performance,and for each a variety of methods has been pro-posed that can describe to varying degrees thelibrary's effectiveness.

Underlying each of these tools is the generalsystems model that assumes that the organiza-tion can define effectiveness, assess its effective-ness, and then make the needed course correc-tions to use its resources to even greater effect. Acritical component of this model of decision-making is that the various levels of decision-makers can define their goals (and agree on thosegoals) and that they have adequate informationto assess the organization and make decisions.

This is relatively easy (perhaps not easy, butrelatively easy) when an organization has a lim-ited set of decision-makers to be concernedabout and produces a clear product. It is moredifficult when the organization is in the publicsector, with a complex array of stakeholders,and when the organization's goals are unclearand multiple and its products intangible andtransitory.

The next chapter looks at the nature of thepublic library and defining and assessing itseffectiveness.

ReferencesAltman, Ellen, Ernest R. DeProspo, Philip M.

Clark, and Ellen Connor Clark. 1976. A DataGathering and Instructional Manual for Perfor-mance Measures in Public Libraries. Chicago:Celadon Press.

Bryson, John M. 1988. Strategy Planning for Publicand Nonprofit Organizations. San Francisco:Jossey Bass.

Buckland, Michael K. 1988. Library Services inTheory and Context, 2nd ed. New York: Perga-mon.

DeProspo, Ernest R., Ellen Altman, and KennethE. Beasley. 1973. Performance Measures for Pub-lic Libraries. Chicago: American Lihrary Asso-ciation.

Hamburg, Morris, Richard C. Clelland, MichaelR. W. Bommer, Leonard E. Ramist, andRonald M. Whitfield. 1974. Library Planningand Decision-Making Systems. Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Press.

Koenig, Michael. E. D., and. Vistor Alperin. 1985."ZBB and PPBS: What's Left Now That theTrendiness Has Cone?" Drexel Library Quar-terly 21 (Summer): 19-38.

McClure, Charles R., Amy Owen, Douglas L.Zweizig, Mary Jo Lynch, and Nancy A. VanHouse. 1987. Planning and Role Setting for Pub-lic Libraries. Chicago: American Library Asso-ciation.

Minimum Standards for Public Library Systems,1966. 1967. Chicago: American Library Asso-ciation, Public Library Association, StandardsCommittee.

Mintzberg, Henry. 1989. Mintzberg on Manage-ment: Inside Our Strange World ofOrganizations. New York: Free Press.

Molz, Redmond Kathleen. 1990. Library Planningand Policy Making: The Legacy of the Public andPrivate Sectors. Metuchen, N.J.: ScarecrowPress.


Osborne, David, and Ted Gaebler. 1992. Reinvent-ing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit IsTransforming the Public Sector. Reading, Mass.:Addison-Wesley.

Palmour, Vernon E., Marcia C. Bellassai, andNancy V. DeWath. 1980. A Planning Processfor Public Libraries. Chicago: American LibraryAssociation.

Public Library Data Service Statistical Report, '90.Annual. Chicago: Public Library Association.

Schneier, Craig E., and Richard W. Beatty. 1979."Combining BARS and MBO: Using anAppraisal System to Diagnose PerformanceProblems." The Personnel Administrator 24(September): 51-60.

Task Force on Federal-State Cooperative Systemfor Public Library Data. 1989. An Action Planfor a Federal-State Cooperative System for Public

1 i *(I ....

Library Data. Washington, D.C.: U.S. NationalCommission on Libraries and Information Sci-ence; National Center for Education Statistics.

Van House, Nancy A., Mary jo Lynch, CharlesR. McClure, Douglas L. Zweizig, and EleanorJo Rodger. 1987. Output Measures for PublicLibraries, 2nd ed. Chicago: American LibraryAssociation.

Walter, Virginia. 1992. Output Measures for PublicLibrary Service to Children. Chicago: AmericanLibrary Association.

Wildaysky, Aaron. 1968. "Budgeting as a Politi-cal Process." International Encyclopaedia of theSocial Sciences, vol. 2. Macmillan and FreePress.

Zweizig, Douglas L., and Eleanor Jo Rodger.1982. Output Measures for Public Libraries.Chicago: American Library Association.

The Nature of theLibrary Organizationand implications forEffectivenessBeing an analysis of what makes the public libraryorganization tick in its environmenthow it livesand changes and the elements that determine itsgoodness.

The discussion up to this point has beenabout effectiveness in fairly general terms andabout the tools that libraries have used to moni-tor and improve their effectiveness. The purposeof this chapter is to look more closely at thecharacteristics of the public library and whatthey imply for the processes of monitoring andpresenting the library's effectiveness.

The Nature of the LibraryEffectiveness is a shifting concept, the definitionand presentation of which are largely dependenton political, social, and economic contexts. Alarge number of stakeholders contribute to deci-sion-making about the library. Their preferencesabout the library's various features (physicalplant, resources, staff, services, communityimpact, and so on) and their assessment are criti-cal. The rational, goal-maximizing concept ofeffectiveness that underlies the tools describedin chapter 2 is useful, especially in representingachievement of expressed goals; but it is a lim-ited view of effectiveness, especially in light ofthese characteristics:

The library is publicly funded.The library produces services (not goods).Library use is largely self-service.

The Library as a PublicOrganizationOsborne and Gaebler (1992) identify many of theproblems inherent in measuring results in the

24

public sector. They offer the following preceptsfor performance measurement in the public sec-tor (pp. 146-54):

What gets measured gets done.If you don't measure results, you can't tellsuccess from failure.If you can't see success, you can't reward it.If you can't reward success, you're probablyrewarding failure.If you can't see success, you can't learn from it.If you can't recognize failure, you can't cor-rect it.If you can demonstrate results, you can winpublic support.

A number of features of public sector organi-zations make assessing and presenting effective-ness both important and problematical:

1. Revenues and outputs are separated. In publicsector organizations, revenues are separatedfrom delivery of service. The taxpayers andthe decision-makers who mandate and over-see the library are not necessarily those whobenefit from the library. Library manage-ment shares many major decisions with peo-ple outside the library (Heymann 1987),some of whom are genuinely concernedabout the library, some of whom are not.Representing the library's effectiveness,then, is critical because revenues depend onpolitical decision-makers, not consumers.

2. A common metric is lacking. Public-sectororganizations generally lack an agreed-uponbottom line by which they are to be evalu-ated, such as (in the private sector) net prof-its or return on investment. The more vaguethe goals and the more difficult the outputsand outcomes are to identify and measure,the more difficult it is to choose how to rep-

30

resent the library and identify a basis forevaluation.

3. The decision-making process is bigger than thelibrary. Decisions about public library fund-ing are made within a larger context. Thepolitical process consists of interest groups,power, and log-rolling. The library's budgetis just one of a series of decisions that the keyplayers make, as they come together againand again for budget and policy decisions.They develop a continuing relationship. Theprocess is somewhat like a courtroom wherethe judge, prosecutor, and defense attorneysee one another in court repeatedly while thedefendantsupposedly the most importantperson thereis just passing through. Thelibrary is just one of many loci servicesaddressed in the decision-making process,and it can easily be an alien presence.

4. The library has neither foes nor champions. Thelibrary is what Wilson (1989) terms a majori-tarian bureaucracy: few citizens activelywork either for or against it. The library costseach taxpayer relatively little, so few work toavoid or reduce library costs. The benefits ofthe library for most individuals are also rela-tively small, so people rarely work to acquirethem. Schools offer a contrasting example:many parents are willing to invest consider-able time and effort to ensure that their chil-dren get good schooling. And the size of theschool taxes gives at least some taxpayerssufficient incentive to monitor school perfor-mance and spending.

Although library support (and opposi-tion) may be mobilized on particular deci-sions, the library does not have a readilyidentifiable, ongoing constituency operatingwithin the political sphere on a regular basis.The closest is the library friends group. Suchgroups can provide economic support, suchas fund-raising and volunteer service, on acontinuing basis. However, they tend tomobilize politically only in crises, whichreduces their effectiveness because they arenot part of the ongoing political process. Incontrast, interest groups that play an activerole in decisions about many governmentservices are more powerful, in part, becausethey use their influence repeatedly, on anumber of issues. Decision-makers are morelikely to worry about taking a stand thatincites their opposition.

On the positive side, the public libraryfield can point to examples where external

The Nature of the Library Organization 25

advocacy has been cultivated. Tulsa is oneinstance where the director has forged anongoing political and fiscal alliance with thepower elite of the community (Robbins andZweizig 1992).

5. Library benefits are not widely self-evident. Thepublic library may be at an added disadvan-tage because its value may be less self-evi-dent than that of public services that obvi-ously address pressing social needs: whenthe water supply or trash collection is beingthreatened, how willing are politicians tosupport a library, whose benefits are diffuseor uncertain?

The Service OrganizationLibraries share with other service organizationsseveral characteristics that affect the assessmentand presentation of their effectiveness. The mostnotable characteristics are the intangibility oftheir outputs, the face-to-face quality of muchservice delivery, and uncertainty about causeand effect.

1. Intangibility. Service organizations produceservices rather than goods. Service is intangi-ble. That is, it cannot always be easilyobserved or stored. The library consists, in asense, of readiness to serve. Until someoneuses the library's resources, no service is pro-duced. And when service does take placewhether employee-delivered or self-ser-vicethere is not always a trace left to beobserved and ^ounted. Book circulation,which is easily measured, is only part oflibrary use; in-house use of library facilitiesand materials, and consultation with thestaff, are harder to capture.

2. Partnership between staff and client. Direct per-sonal contact between staff and client isrequired for many services. When the indi-vidual employee interacts directly with theclient, both the employee and the user arecritical to the nature and quality of serviceprovided. From the employee side, the ser-vice delivered depends on instantaneousdecisions: What does this client need? Whatshould I do? How far should I go?

From the client side, the information ex-changed between employee and client is thefundamental raw material of any service inter-action (Mills 1986). The client communicateshis or her need, assesses the appropriateness

31

26 The Nature of the Library Organization

of the service provided, and determineswhen the transaction is terminated. Thelibrary employee's ability to help is circum-scribed by the user's ability and willingnessto work with the staff member in translatinghis or her need into something the librarycan respond to.

3. Incleterminant technology. A third characteris-tic of libraries as service organizations is fre-quent uncertainty about the best way to dothings. It is often difficult to link cause andeffect, inputs, processes, outputs, and out-come's. This characteristic is called indeter-minant technology and is common in profes-sional service, which depends on theindividual application of judgment to eachcase that comes to hand.

Technology, in this sense, is the combina-tion of know-how, processes, and resourcesused to create services. When technology isdeterminant, it is easy to specify what theorganization must do to deliver good ser-vice. Organizations like McDonald's rely ondeterminant technology to control the qual-ity of the product delivered across thousandsof service outlets.

The more customized the service re-quired, and the less we know about the linksbetween activities and outcomes, the greaterthe reliance on the individual employee'sefforts and judgment. Checking out booksrelies on determinant technology. Selectingmaterials uses indeterminant technology;ordering them uses determinant technology.Answering reference questions can be highlyindeterminant.

4. Observing only the observable. Our under-standing of the links between library services; .nd outcomes (as opposed to outputs) iseven less complete. Outcomes take placelater, often much later, and outside thelibrary, as the person acts on the informationor is changed in some way as a result of thelibrary use. Children's use of the publiclibrary helps them do better in the learningprocess, librarians assume. But how can thatbe assessed? How can the library measure itsrole in the child's learning? Which kinds ofmaterials and services have the greatestimpact? Who are the most effective staffmembers, and why? Does any of this varyamong different groups of children?

Managing and evaluating employee andorganizational performance are complexwhen the service transaction is difficult to

observe and to control. The monitoring ofservice quality may often be done only on anintermittent, obtrusive basis. Many of themeasures in Output Measures for PublicLibraries (Van House and others 1987), forexample, rely on reports from users or staff;others rely on sampling. In many libraries,assessment of service quality (as opposed toquantity) is based more on client complaintsthan on any systematic assessment.

What is most observable in service organi-zations is not outputs and outcomes so muchas processes. Management may not knowwhat people accomplish, but it does knowwhat they are doing. The processes that canbe observed are primarily those performedby the staff and, to a lesser degree, by theclientele. When processes and outputs areobserved but outcomes are not, the organiza-tion often becomes what Wilson (1989) hastermed a procedural organization. Theemphasis is on how people do their jobs andfurther, on the observable parts of theirjobsthat is, are they following establishedprocedures?

Evaluation of service organizations suchas libraries, therefore, often emphasizes theorganizations' processes and their observ-able outputs, on the assumption that theresult is effective outputs and outcomes. Moregenerally, evaluation addresses that which isobservable with the hope that it correlateswith that which is important, but not observ-able.

Self-ServiceLibrary use is largely self-service. D'Elia andRodger (1991) found, for example, that fewerthan half (42 percent) of the users of the FreeLibrary of Philadelphia asked a librarian forassistance. Often, the only contact with the staffis at the circulation desk; the rest of the user'svisit amounts to self-service. Present in manyservices, such as automated tellers and self-ser-vice gas stations, this concept is termed copro-duction: The user helps to produce his or herown service.

Advances in information technology areincreasing the range of activities that users canperform for themselves. CD-ROMS, for example,allow the user to do the kind of bibliographicsearching that used to be limited to the staff.

Unfortunately, many library users fail when

32

The Nature of the Library Organization 27

working on their own, or at least aren't as suc-cessful as they could have been had they beenmore expert or made more use of staff. This isthe case with traditional services, and may beeven more so with advanced informationresources.

Self-service limits both the library's ability toserve and its ability to assess and represent itsservice. Outputs are even more difficult to assesswhen they are self-service. The only directlyobservable outputs are those that involve alibrary process, such as circulation. How doesthe library know whether users found what theywere looking for? Were the things found whatthey actually needed? Could the library havedone more to help? Could the users have done abetter job? Assessment of such performance fac-tors is difficult.

The critical role of the library user in libraryservicesas a participant in the face-to-face ser-vice transactions and in self-servicefurthercomplicates the control and assessment of ser-vice quality. The outputs and outcomes oflibrary use are a function of both the library andthe user. It may be difficult to separate the con-tribution of each and to evaluate the library'sperformance.

ConclusionAs a publicly supported organization, the librarydepends for its resources on the political pro-cess, not on direct assessment by its users. Thepolitical process is large and complex, embrac-ing a much broader agenda than just thelibrary's funding, and with a large and variedset of players. The public library is often at a dis-advantage in this process because it rarely gen-erates strong feelings among regular partici-pants in the budget process.

The library has to figure out how to explainits mission and persuasively illustrate its excel-

lence. It is hampered in this by the nature of itsservices: intangible and fleeting and, therefore,difficult to count and evaluate. The library isalso highly dependent on the user as a partici-pant in the service transaction, making cross-organizational comparison especially tricky (forexample, circulation is much easier for thelibrary to generate in more educated communi-ties than in less educated ones). And, finally, theconnection between library operations and out-puts and community outcomes is delayed, indi-rect, and difficult to describe. What has thelibrary done for children at risk in this commu-nity? Where would they be without the library?

ReferencesD'Elia, George, and Eleanor Jo Rodger. 1991.

Free Library of Philadelphia Patron Survey: FinalReport. Philadelphia: Free Library of Philadel-phia.


Mills, Peter K. 1986. Managing Service Industries:Organizational Practices in a PostindustrialEconomy. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger.

Osborne, David, and Ted Gaebler. 1992. Rein-venting Government: How the EntrepreneurialSpirit Is Transforming the Public Sector. Read-ing, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

Robbins, Jane B., and Douglas L. Zweizig. 1992.Keeping the Book$: Public Library Financial Prac-tices. Fort Atkinson, Wis.: Highsmith Press.

Van House, Nancy A., Mary Jo Lynch, CharlesR. McClure, Douglas L. Zweizig, anri EleanorJo Rodger. 1987. Output Measures for PublicLibraries, 2nd ed. Chicago: American LibraryAssociation.

Wilson, James Q. 1989. Bureaucracy: What Gov-ernment Agencies Do and Why They Do It. NewYork: Basic.

The Public LibraryEffectiveness StudyBelow, a brief description of the research on which isbased a model of public library effectiveness.

A comprehensive framework for representingyour library's effectiveness is presented in thenext chapter. To some extent, the model and itsdiscussion are based on our experience in evalu-ating and planning for libraries over manyyears. To a much larger extent, the model isbased on our field research in 1988 to 1990 calledthe Public Library Effectiveness Study. Thestudy originally appeared in several pieces(Childers and Van House 1989a, b, c; Van Houseand Childers 1990). The full report of that study,incorporating the original pieces and additionalanalyses, can be found in The Public Library Effec-tiveness Study: The Complete Report (Van Houseand Childers 1993), a companion volume to thisbook.

This chapter capsulizes the Public LibraryEffectiveness Study and sets the foundation forthe model of public library effectiveness.

PurposeThe Public Library Effectiveness Study wasundertaken to define effectiveness for the U.S.public library, to answer the question, "What arethe characteristics of an effective public library?"Its purpose was not to identify effectivelibraries, but to identify the features that peoplelook for in assessing a library's effectivenessthe indicators of effectiveness.

MethodThe study employed a series of interviews withselected library stakeholders in five communi-ties on the east and west coasts, followed by anational survey of nearly 2,500 people represent-

28

ring seven library stakeholders groups: librarymanagers, library service staff, members offriends groups, trustees, users, local governmentofficials, and community leaders.

Each respondent was asked to state howimportant it would be to know about a givenitem (indicator) if he or she had to describe theeffectiveness of his or her library to a peer. Sixty-one indicators were culled from the literatureand interviews and collapsed from 257 specificitems. The intention was to identify the valueattached to each indicator, so as to prioritize thelist for public libraries, generally, not to evaluatea particular public library.

FindingsIndicators of EffectivenessThe study generated a comprehensive list ofindicators of library effectiveness, ranked andclassified so as to indicate how the various con-stituents, together or separately, view the publiclibrarythat is, which indicators they prefer tolook at when they assess the goodness of thepublic library institution. In addition to the 61indicators on the questionnaire, respondentswere asked to add any indicators they thoughtwere missing. Thus, a 62nd indicator, Politicaland Fiscal (External) Viability of the Library, wasuncovered as potentially important. It was writ-ten in by 2.5 percent of the total respondentsabout 60 people. Had it been suggested on thequestionnaire, it is safe to assume that manyrespondents would have rated it highly.

Differences among StakeholdersOne of the most interesting results of the sur-vey is that the seven stakeholder groups, ratherthan having very dissimilar views of the public

34

The Public Library Effectiveness Study 29

library, tend to have relatively similar views.They tend to look at the same things in assess-ing public library goodness, rather than differ-ent things. That the survey instrument findsonly subtle differences across groups may be afunction of the instrument and of survey researchmethods generally. Qualitative research meth-ods such as in-depth interviews are better ableto tease out these kinds of differences. Andthe interviews did reveal some subtle differ-ences. Furthermore, a close look at the surveydata shows differences among the groupsin the particular weights they give to each ofthe indicators. These are discussed further inchapter 7.

Dimensions of EffectivenessThe survey results can be used to look at thebroad dimensions of public library effectiveness.Because of their overall similarity, data for allstakeholder groups were used to group theeffectiveness indicators into sets, or dimensions,of effectiveness which are composed of relatedindicators.

Factor analysis produced the dimensions bygrouping together the indicators that were simi-larly rated by the respondents. Factor analysisa common statistical technique for condensingmassive amounts of datacomputes whichitems in a study (indicators) are most closelycorrelatedthat is, which items (indicators) con-sistently receive similar ratings by the respon-dents. If two items receive similar ratings consis-tently, they are viewed, in factor analysis, to bemeasuring the same underlying thing. Thus,they belong in the same factor (dimension oflibrary performance).

After the computation of factors, theresearcher's job is to name each factor so as toinclude all items. The ideal is that each factorcan be given a name that is simple, excludes noitem that has fallen into the factor, and intrudeson the conceptual space of no other factor in thecomputation.

The researcher can approach factor analysisfrom several different statistical points of view.This gives the researcher the flexibility to pro-duce several factor solutions from the same datain order to arrive at that best set of factors"best" depending, in part, on how much of therelationship among variables is accounted for inthe factor and, in part, on the interpretability(nameability) of the results.

The groupings produced by the factor analy-sis generated the "definition" of public library

effectiveness. The public library's effectivenessis defined through the Public Library Effective-ness Study as:

Dimension 1:Traditional Counts of Library Activity

Dimension 2: Internal Processes

Dimension 3: Community Fit

Dimension 4: Access to Materials

Dimension 5: Physical Facilities

Dimension 6: Boundary Spanning

Dimension 7: Service Offerings

Dimension 8: Service to Special Groups

The dimensions and their subordinate indicatorsare the basis for "A Model of Public LibraryEffectiveness" (AMPLE) in the next chapter. Afundamental strength of AMPLE is that it isbased on data from the field. Now and then, anindicator seems to be out of place in its dimen-sion; however, most of the indicators fit logicallyunder their respective dimensions. The dimen-sions and their subordinate indicators remain asthey appeared in the reports of the research,with only a couple of words changed. They arelisted in order of their statistical importance indefining the dimensions, from most to leastimportant.

Dimension 1: Traditional CountsUse and UsersNumber of Visits to LibraryReference VolumeCirculationVariety of UsersMaterials TurnoverMaterials ExpenditureTotal ExpendituresProgram AttendanceIn-library UseMaterials OwnedStaff SizeReference Fill RateStaff ExpendituresEquipment UsageUse of Library Compared to Other

Services/Events

35

30 The Public Library Effectiveness Study

Dimension 1 conjures up measures that havebeen used for decades in describing publiclibraries. The measures are not unlike those thatmight be reported for any public sector opera-tion: the major inputs to the organization, theextent to which its products or services are used,and its broad penetration into the market (popu-lation). At the bottom of the list are two indica-tors that were less tightly linked to the others,both in the study responses and intuitively:Equipment Usage and Use of Library Comparedto Other Services/Events, which could not beconsidered "traditional." They appear in thesame dimension because they have similar lev-els of importance in the respondents' opinions.


Managerial CompetenceStaff MoraleStaff QualityEfficiency of Library OperationsWritten PoliciesGoal AchievementStaff HelpfulnessSafety of UsersSupport of Intellectual Freedom

Dimension 2 deals mostly with the internal work-ings of the library: management and supervision,characteristics of staff, organizational climate,and control of internal activities. Intuitively, Sup-port of Intellectual Freedom and Staff Helpful-ness seem not to fit this dimension as well.

Dimension 3: Community FitCommunity Awareness of OfferingsUsers' EvaluationContribution to Community Well-BeingServices Suited to the CommunityPublic OpinionFlexibility of Library ManagementRelations with Community AgenciesCommunity AnalysisStaff Suitability to CommunityPublic RelationsStaff Contact with Users

Community Fit contains indicators that speak tothe library's relationship to the community itserves.

Dimension 4: Access to MaterialsInformation about Other CollectionsInter-Library LoanCooperation with Other LibrariesSpeed of ServiceMaterials AvailabilityExtent Services are Free

In Dimension 4, materials are the prime focusmaterials obtained either from the library's ownshelves, or from outside sources. Speed and costare also aspects of access that easily fit here.


Building AppealConvenience of Building LocationBuilding Easy to IdentifyParkingBuilding Suitability

One of the most coherent dimensions is Dimen-sion 5. All indicators focus on one aspect oranother of Physical Facilities.

Dimension 6: Boundary SpanningPolitical and Fiscal Viability of the Library

(Indicator #62, added from write-inresponse)

Board ActivenessVoluntary Contributions (Gifts, Money, Time)Library Products (Book lists, Guides, etc.)Energy Efficiency of BuildingContinuing Education for StaffPlanning and EvaluationPublic Involvement in Library Decisions

Dimension 6 incorporates indicators that relateto spanning the boundaries between the libraryand the external environmentboards and vol-unteers, products that advertise the library's ser-vices, public involvement in running the library,planning (which considers interfaces betweenthe library and the outside world), and Continu-ing Education for Staff (which exposes staff tooutside influences). The ill-fitting indicator inthis dimension is Energy Efficiency of Building.


Range of MaterialsRange of ServicesConvenience of HoursMaterials QualityNewness of Materials

Dimension 7 offers a coherent set of indicatorsthat define broadly the nature and quality of ser-vices offered.


Handicapped AccessSpecial Group Services

A small dimension comprised of only two indi-cators, both of which describe services to groupsneeding special attention, although Handi-

36

The Public Library Effectiveness Study 31

InputTraditional

countsPhysical facilities

Service to special groups

k Process -)fr Output --P. OutcomeInternal Traditional Community fit

counts

Access to materials

Service offerings

Service to special groups

Community fit

processes

Access to materials

Community fit

Boundaryspanning

COmmunity fit

EnvironmentAccess to materials t3c4diry spanning

Figure 8. Preference Dimensions Arrayed on the Systems Continuum

Goals

Process

Systems Resource

Multiple Constituents

Traditional Counts, Access to Materials, Service to Special Groups

Internal Processes, Service Offerings, Boundary Spanning

Traditional Counts, Boundary Spanning

Community Fit, Service to Special Groups, Boundary Spanning

Figure 9. Preference Dimensions Compared with the Four Models of Effectiveness

capped Access 's far more specific than SpecialGroup Services.

A glance at the indicators listed under theeight dimensions affirms that the model gener-ated by the research is a broad one. When thedimensions are placed under the most relatedelements of the systems model, as in figure 8repeating dimensions as the diversity of theirindicators calls for itthey cover the contin-uum. Even at this most general level of analysis,one easily sees that the dimensions range acrossinputs, processes, and outputs and, by virtue ofsome of the indicators under the dimension"community fit," even into library outcomes.

One can also compare the dimensions withthe four major views of organizational effective-ness. As you will recall from chapter 1, the fourmajor views of organizational effectiveness are:

Goal: The goal model views effectiveness interms of the organization's achievement ofspecific ends, stressing outputs and pro-ductivity, such as consumption of servicesand proportion of usership.

Process: The process model says that organiza-tions are social systems seeking to surviveand maintain their equilibrium and thattheir effectiveness is measured by internalprocesses and organizational health as wellas by goal attainment.

Systems resource: The systems resource modelemphasizes the organization's need tosecure resources from its environment,emphasizing relationships with externalresources and their controllers.

Multiple constituencies: The multiple constituen-cies model is concerned with the satisfac-tion of the organization's various con-stituent groups, or stakeholders.

In figure 9, where the dimensions arearranged under the four views of effectiveness,it is again clear that the dimensions are wide-ranging. They represent all four of the primaryviews of organizational effectiveness and affirmthe breadth of the model.

ReferencesChilders, Thomas A., and Nancy A. Van House.

1989a. The Public Library Effectiveness Study:Final Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Depart-ment of Education, Office of EducationalResearch and Improvement.

Childers, Thomas, and Nancy Van House.1989b. "Dimensions of Public Library Effec-tiveness." Library and Information ScienceResearch 11 (JulySeptember): 273-302.

Childers, Thomas, and Nancy Van House. 1989c."The Grail of Goodness: The Effective Public

37

32 The Public Library Effectiveness Study

Library." Library Journal 114 (October 1):

44-49.Mills, Peter K. 1986. Managing Service Industries:

Organizational Practices in a PostindustrialEconomy. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger.

Osborne, David, and Ted Gaebler. 1992. Rein-venting Government: How the EntrepreneurialSpirit is Transforming the Public Sector. Read-ing, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.


Van House, Nancy A., and Thomas Childers.1990. "Dimensions of Public Library Effec-tiveness II: Library Performance." Library andInformation Science Research 12 (AprilJune):131-53.



A Model of PublicLibrary Effectiveness(AMPLE)In which is displayed and explicated a framework bywhich the manager may plan a program cf repre-senting the effectiveness of the library.

The Major Uses of AMPLEIn this chapter, the framework that we havealluded to from time to time is unveiled. Theframework, or model, is called "A Model ofPublic Library Effectiveness," or AMPLE. It hasthree major uses, which focus on the library'sprogram of metrics, or assessment of effective-ness, and on using the metrics to communicatethe library's effectiveness to the stakeholders:

Reviewing your "mix of metrics," your pro-gram of assessment;Developing a program of assessment; andCreating a strategy for communicating to keystakeholderswhat to communicate andhow.

These can be seen as "steps," all three center-ing on how the public library represents itself toits various stakeholders. While the printed pagerequires that the steps be presented in linearorder, the reality is that they are all taken at thesame time, each step interacting with the others.

In this chapter, we touch briefly on each useof AMPLE to illustrate how the model can beput to use in reviewing your metrics and devel-oping a program of assessment. Creating a com-munication strategy will be treated at length inchapter 7.

The use of AMPLE can be broadly indicated, notnarrowly prescribed.

Note that the discussion here is indicative,

6not prescriptive, for it will be the local condi-tions that prescribe the particulars of applyingAMPLE.

Review Your Assessment ProgramAMPLE allows you to see how well your assess-ment program covers all the critical dimensionsof the library and the important parts (indica-tors) that make up those dimensions. The viewafforded by the model should tell you how com-prehensive the library's assessment programiswhether you have a whole or a partial pic-ture of the library's goodness.

Program assessment operates in two direc-tions: breadth and depth. For breadth, one looksat completeness of coverage across the dimen-sions of AMPLE. For depth, one looks at exhaus-tive coverage within a given dimension. Inreviewing depth of library assessment, you maywant to focus on the high-ranking indicatorsand their measures, introduced later as the shortAMPLE.

Develop a Program for AssessmentThe primary objective of AMPLE is to help thelocal library develop a considered program forassessment and, ultimately, for communicatingthe assessment to stakeholders. A more com-plete and more deliberate assessment shouldensue. To reach the point of a full assessment, goin stages: identify what is currently being done,locate the gaps vis-a-vis your local situation, andset an agenda for improved assessment (whichtallies to begin; when to develop and apply achecklist or a survey).

A major use of a comprehensive model is topick and choose the dimensions and indicators

39 33

34 A Model of Public Library Effectiveness (AMPLE)

that fit the current local situation. It permits thelibrary manager to tune the representation of thelibrary to the need at hand. For instance, if effi-ciency of operations is of paramount importanceto a financially beleaguered county, your librarymight be wise to give extra weight to indicator2.8, Efficiency of Library Operations.

Create a Strategy forCommunicating withthe StakeholdersThe program for assessment is never developedin isolation. It is created with its ends in mind.Indiscriminate collection of data wastes energy.Instead, one considers the reasons for assess-ment before settling on a measurement pro-gram. The primary motivator is to present theorganization to a person or group in order toaffect their perceptions of, and ultimately behav-ior toward, the organization.

The facets of creating a strategy for communi-cation are:

identifying the key stakeholders with whomyou are likely to want to communicate on acontinuing basis;establishing the individual measure(s) thatwill be most useful in communicating withthem; andcreating the most compelling presentations ofthe measures for each stakeholder typefor-matting the assessment for optimal communi-cation.

The Structure of AMPLEAMPLE is a hierarchy of dimensions, indicators,and measures, with annotations. The dimen-sions and indicators were taken directly fromthe Public Library Effectiveness Study. In trans-

i5.3 i;ARKII19)1.11(er of parking spaces)

,iheade.tee..

PLDS IOMPI.1 PSCS Al D 5+ I

OMC

lating the results of the research into somethingthat makes applied sense, we adjusted the modelproduced by the research. First, we did someslight renaming of a dimension; second, weadded the 62nd indicator, Political and Fiscal(External) Viability of the Library, written in byenough respondents to convince us that itshould not be ignored in the model. Overall, thechanges to the research results were minimal.AMPLE is fundamentally the set of dimensionsand indicators that was generated by responsesfrom 2,500 people from seven different con-stituent groups across the country.

The model begins with the dimensions derivedfrom the study. It then moves to the next level inthe hierarchy, the indicators, subordinate termsthat define library goodness under each dimen-sion. Finally, it moves to measures of those indi-cators, the means by which the indicators maybe described. Figure 10 illustrates these rela-tionships.

Figure 10. Dimensions, Indicators, and Measures

Figure 11 shows a fragment of AMPLE, illus-trating the relationships among dimensions,indicators, and measures as they appear in themodel. The full AMPLE begins on page 41.

1 1

D+ I Notes

1C2Irnel J5Ision : Physical Facilities

x x Tally of total spaces (e.g., in dedi-cated lot or within x blocks). Orsurvey. See Hatry and others1992, 64: "Ease in parking."

Figure 11. Fragment of AMPLE

I

40

A Model of Public Library Effectiveness (AMPLE) 35

The major work on AMPLE beyond the Pub-lic Library Effectiveness Study has been to trans-form the indicators into measures, in order tomake AMPLE applicable to a practical librarysituation. In research language, this is known as"operationalizing" the indicatorsturning aconcept into a survey question or stating it as aspecific data element to collect. AMPLE makesthe indicators usable as measures. In identifyingmeasures, we have drawn freely on the last twodecades' work on library measurement and eval-uation. Our goal is not to create new measures,but to rationalize and systematize the librarymanager's choice among available measures.

The indicators and measures of AMPLE arebased on library services as they were at thetime of the study, of course. As new technolo-gies effect changes in library services, new indi-cators or measures will be required. Forinstance, electronic access to library documentsfrom home may diminish the usefulness of theindicator "visits to the library" and may requirethe addition of an indicator related to electronicinquiries, along with an appropriate measure.

The Nature of theAMPLE MeasuresFor AMPLE, the term "measures" is interpretedfreely. Here, measures may be based either onidiosyncratic, personal assessment or on the sys-tematic collection of data. In translating indica-tors into measures (operationalizing), we havepreferred the systematic over the idiosyncraticfor example, a count or an opinion surveyoverthe opinion of one or a few people, or casualobservation. Systematic measures are generallythe more difficult of the two to invent locally,but are usually defensible as being more ob-jective and valid. For some indicators, themodel offers both systematic and idiosyncraticmeasures.

Often, one or more measures for a given indi-cator were turned up in the course of the litera-ture search and interviews of the Public LibraryEffectiveness Study. They are usually measuresthat have been used in the field (such as "Num-ber of Users per Capita"), and to some degreethis argued for including the measure inAMPLE. From the list of measures thus"affirmed," we selected those that seem to por-tray each given indicator best and to be mostfeasible, in terms of data collection, interpreta-tion, and communication.

For some indicators, the literature and inter-views suggested no measure. When we could,we invented a measure. The invented measureshave not been used or tested, but they are directreflect-ions of thei adicators, carrying a certainamount of face validity. For example, the indica-tor Staff Contact with Users might lead naturallyto such a measure as Number of ProfessionalContacts with Users, Individual and Group,Inside and Outside the Library. (In some casesyou may think that we, in our wisdom, havestretched too much to find a measure. Perhapswe have, preferring to err on the side of "over-operationalizing.")

Some indicators may have no readily avail-able or easily proposed systematic measureforexample, Managerial Competence or BuildingEasily Identified from the Street. For now, theassessment of library effectiveness in such areasrequires idiosyncratic assessment by one ormore people in one or more stakeholdergroupslibrary managers, users, citizens,trustees, etc. The assessment may come in theform of statements of one or several individuals'opinions. Or such an idiosyncratic "measure"could be turned systematic by creating, testing,and applying an opinion survey to many people.The results will still be subjective, but morebroadly based and offering systematic coverageof various opinions.

Many measures may be intuitively obvious,but that doesn't mean that they are easy, or thatthe manager can escape a certain amount of cre-ativity and invention in using them. Time Spentin Building may require a method of observinguser behavior, such as creating a user ticket thatis stamped with the time when the user entersand leaves. Number of Formal Groups Servedper Annum will require defining your terms("formal group") and setting your scales formeasurement (Do you count groups, or individ-uals in groups? Do you classify the types ofgroups? And so on). Services to Populationswith Special Needs may require a lengthyassessment by an outside consultant ("idiosyn-cratic").

To keep the model brief, we eliminatedredundancy in the measures as much as possibleand, in some cases, left specific decisions aboutmeasures to the reader. For instance, measuresare rarely given both as a simple frequency(Current Registration, for example) and as a per-capita figure (Current Registration per Capita).We chose the form which we thought would bemost telling of goodness and assumed thereader would adapt the measure to local needs.

41

36 A Model of Public Library Effectiveness (AMPLE)--- --

The Short AMPLELest you be daunted, the model uses a graybackground to highlight a briefer version, theshort AMPLE, with a truncated list of indicatorsand measures. If the full AMPLE seems too,well, ample, you can choose the short AMPLE.

Appendix A, "The AMPLE Worksheet," alsoallows you to use either the complete model orjust the gray portions as a planning documentfor your own assessment.

A brief AMPLE, for the faint of heart and short oftime. Look for the gray background.

As shown in the full report of The PublicLibrary Effectiveness Study (Van House andChilders 1993), all of the indicators were ratedby all stakeholders as at least moderately impor-tant in defining public library effectiveness. Thisis no surprise, because the list was developedfrom indicators that had already appeared in theliterature or in interviews. However, knowingthat people who answer questionnaires areinclined toward a positive response, one couldassume that the indicators rated at the top of thelist are of relatively greater importance and thatthose at the bottom of the list are of relativelyless importance.

Also, collecting data on all indicators is notfeasible for most libraries. Therefore, a shortermodel of effectiveness is offered. It, like the fullAMPLE, is based on the research of the PublicLibrary Effectiveness Study: the indicators ratedamong the top 31 of the 61 indicators by at leastfour of the seven stakeholder groups wereselected. The 62nd indicator, Political and Fiscal(External) Viability of the Library, was arbitrar-ily imposed on the short AMPLE, owing to itsprominence as a write-in response. Thus, theshort AMPLE is a much shorter list, consistingonly of the indicators that most stakeholdersrated highestthe items that they consideredmost telling about public library effectiveness.

An interesting thing happens in the shortmodel;

In the full AMPLE, most of the indicators thatreflect Output Measures for Public Libraries(Van House and others 1987) are found in thefirst dimension, "traditional counts." In theshort version, only two of these indicators arefound. That is, only two of the "traditionalcounts" were considered top-ranking by mostof the stakeholders.The sixth dimension, "boundary spanning,"

appears only because we included the write-in indicator, Political and Fiscal (External)Viability of the Library.All indicators in the seventh dimension, "ser-vice offerings," are included in the shortAMPLE.A large proportion of the short AMPLE mea-sures are idiosyncratic or depend on opinionsurvey.Service consumption has surprisingly lowpresence in the short AMPLE. "Number ofVisits," "Volume of Reference Questions,"and "Contribution to the Well-Being of theCommunity" are the indicators that mostdirectly suggest contact with the user, or out-put. The other indicators that come the closestto showing user contact are really serviceofferings, rather than service consumptions.

Notes on Using AMPLEWith regard to the measures: they are sugges-tions, rather than prescriptions. If you seek anarrow prescription for your evaluation andcommunication program, this is not it. AMPLEis a general framework to help in creating anassessment and communication program. A cer-tain amount of invention will be neededforinstance, dividing a measure on use into sub-measures for adult use and juvenile use, or byformat of material used (book, serial, computer,etc.); or creating a survey questionnaire or atrustee checklist.

For "goodness" sake, don't use AMPLE blindly.

Lest the tail wag the dog, flexibility is neededin using AMPLE, as it is with any model. If yourlibrary runs a periodic survey on satisfactionwith parking, for example, that measure couldreadily be used in lieu of the measure "Numberof Parking Spaces" (under indicator 5.3, Park-ing). In many cases, the astute manager willknow of locally available measures that willarticulate a particular indicator. Good. Use themfreely. Using measures that you have usedbefore gives you the added benefit of trackingchanges over time.

The Annotated AMPLEIn order to be more useful and usable, each mea-sure in the model is annotated in five ways. Fig-ure 12 demonstrates this.

2


PLDS IOMPLI FSCSI I OMC

AID I E+ E Notes

Dimension 1: T .aditional Counts

1.3 CIRCULATIONNo. of materials circulated

per annumx x x Available data.

Figure 12. Other Data Collection Efforts in AMPLE

The first annotation: references to other majordata collection efforts. In the past decade, a num-ber of national efforts to improve the measure-ment and evaluation of public libraries havebeen launched. They have aimed at improvingthe nature of the data collected, the methodsused to collect them, and their tabulating andreporting. You may want to emphasize data thathave the professional endorsement implied byinclusion in any of the following, in addition tothe endorsement implied by the results of thePublic Library Effectiveness Study.

The Public Library Data Service Statistical Report(PLDS), which amounts to an annual statisti-cal report of national data from libraries thatvolunteer to send data in (Public LibraryAssociation 1990).Output Measures for Public Libraries (OMPL), amanual for assessing public library output,also from the Public Library Association (VanHouse and others 1987). The manual is in useacross the country. The measures in the man-ual are all included in the Public Library DataService.Output Measures for Public Library Services toChildren (OMC), a manual for assessing out-puts for the public library's services to chil-dren (Walter 1992). Many of the measuresparallel OMPL measures; where there is a rel-

evant measure that does not appear in OMPL,the notation "OMC" appears in the notes col-umn.The Federal-State Cooperative System forPublic Library Data (FSCS), a project whereinstate libraries cooperate with the NationalCenter for Education Statistics in the collec-tion of selected statistics from all U.S. publiclibraries and their publication in both printand computer form (Task Force 1989).The American Library Directory (ALD), anannual compilation of statistics about individ-ual public libraries (or systems of libraries).The data are not aggregated (Americ n LibraryDirectory 1991).

Figure 12, "Other Data Collection Efforts inAMPLE," illustrates how the model is keyed tothe other data collection efforts.

The second annotation: A suggestion as tohow easy or difficult it would be to take that mea-sure (circled in figure 13), on a four-point scale:

E+ = Easier. Data or knowledge about themeasure exists; may require a minor bitof calculation.

E = Easy. Requires data collection or reflec-tion on a qualitative measurebut is rela-tively simple. Methods of data collec-tion are available or intuitively obvious.

PLDS I FSCS I ALDOMC

Notes

Dimension 5: Phwsical Facilities

5.3 PARKINGNumber of parking spaces x Tally of total spaces (e.g., in dedi-

cated lot or within x blocks). Orsurvey. See Hatry and others1992, 64: "Ease in parking."

Figure 13. Difficulty of Measures in AMPLE

43


D = Difficult. Methods are available for datacollection, but it will not be easy. Opin-ion data require an expert's help or con-siderable exploration of the item.

D+= More Difficult. Methods of data collec-tion or qualitative assessment are notavailable. Requires local invention orcreative synthesis of existing instru-ments. Inspection (idiosyncratic obser-vation) also falls here, for it is not reli-able.! = Even more difficult than "more diffi-

cult." Very time-consuming or con-ceptually impossible; perhaps noteven amenable to idiosyncraticassessment. Labeled "!" under D+.

Generally, the measures done by inspectionor tally are easier; the ones done by survey,more difficult.

The third annotation is contained in the"Notes:" An indication of the type of measurebeing proposed (figure 14):

"Tally," a count, such as circulations percapita;

"Inspection," an idiosyncratic observation,such as an expert's opinion; and

"Survey," a systematic observation of opinionor remembered fact, such as a survey ofuser awareness of library services.

I PLDS IOMPLI FSCS ALD IOMC

E+

The fourth annotation: Notes that clarify andillustrate the measures (figure 15). Where itseemed helpful, we have added brief notes thatclarify the brief statement of a measure, clarifythe method of collecting data on the measure, orillustrate the measure in some way.

The fifth annotation: References to other docu-ments and data collection instruments that offersome guidance for the particular measure (fig-ure 16). In many cases, there are books or arti-cles that will offer advice and counsel when youare faced with a measure that is less than trans-parent. They may contain a general discussionof the measurement topic, a prototype data col-lection instrument, or methodological hints.AMPLE includes references to such aids.

Types of Measuresin AMPLEFour broad classes of measure are identified inAMPLE's "Notes."

Available Statistical DataEvery organization has already available a rangeof data that can be used to describe it. Budgetarydata already exist somewhere in the organization.

E D I D+ I Notes


5.3 PARKINGNumber of parking spaces x x of total spaces (e.g., in dedi-

cated lot or within x blocks). Orsurvey. See Hatry and others1992, 64: "Ease in parking."

Figure 14. Type of Measure in AMPLE

I PLDS IOMPL I FSCS I ALD II E+

OMCEIDID+1Notes


5.3 PARKINGNumber of parking spaces x x Tall of total spaces (e.g., in dedi-

cated lot or within x bl Orur%,..ymjSee Hatry and others

1992, 64: "Ease in parking."

Figure 15. Notes That Clarify AMPLE Measures

44


PLDS IOMPLOMC

I FSCS I ALD II E+ I E I D D+ I Notes


5.3 PARKINGNumber of parking spaces x x Tally of total spaces (e.g., in dedi-

cated lot or within x blocks). Orsurve Hatry and others

992, "Ease in parking."

Figure 16. References in AMPLE

You may wish to do further breakdowns forparticular purposes, but at least some dataalready exist. Likewise, some data are producedas by-products of library operations. Virtuallyevery library gets a count of circulation transac-tions from its circulation system. No additionaleffort is required to count circulation. Similarly,you may have data on the size of your collec-tion, number of registered borrowers, number ofsearches of an online catalog, and the like.

TallyA tally is a quantitative measure: a count ofsomething. Circulation statistics are, of course,tallies of all circulation transactions. The distinc-tion that we want to make here, however, is theeffort required of the library staff. Circulationtransactions are tallied automatically by the circu-lation system. We have labeled as "tally" in table 1,"A Model of Public Library Effectiveness," themeasures that require tallying activity on thepart of the staff.

A tally may be a census of all occurrences of athing, as when we count all reference questionsasked during the year. Or it may be a sample ofthe thing, as when we count the number of ref-erence questions asked on a random sample ofdays in the year. (We often use a sample to thenextrapolate to the whole, such as using a sampleof reference questions during the year to esti-mate the annual total.)

One important distinction that affects thelevel of effort required of a tally is whether it canbe done at the convenience of the person doingthe tally, or whether it has to be done on a morefixed schedule. Tallies of things can be done atthe observer's convenience, within certain limits.Tallies of people's behavior generally have to bedone at the time that the behavior takes place.Counting reference questions, for example, hasto be done at the time of the transactions

(notwithstanding the time-honored custom ofrecording a clutch of reference transactions atthe end of a busy period). Tallies that have to bedone on a constrained schedule require a higherlevel of effort than those that are more flexible.

InspectionThe "data" for inspection measures are subjec-tive and idiosyncratic, depending wholly on theexperience and opinion of the "inspector," andnot on data that are systematically collected.They may consist of the president of the board'sopinion as to the competence of the library'smanagement; orfor a rather second-handopinionthe opinion of the director as to howconvenient the users find the library's location.Clearly; a key issue is who is the inspectorthatis, whose opinions are we using.

We "inspect" where other methods do notexist or are very difficult or impossible to apply(as is the case in evaluating staff morale), orwhere inspection would be good enough (as indetermining the extent of written policies, wheretheir presence or absence is easily and objec-tively verifiable, and a quantitative measure like"number of pages of written policies" may notbe meaningful).

In AMPLE, many inspections can be donefairly casually; but some require deliberate andtime-consuming attention. Inspection is an easymethod when it consists of asking your ownopinion or the opinion of a colleague and thatopinion is already formed (for example, "Howappealing do you think the users find the build-ing interior?"). It becomes more difficult whenone must ask the opinion of someone removedfrom the library, such as a city personnel officeror an expert on building safety; when one feelscompelled to do an informal (nonsystematic)poll, such as asking several users what theythink of the library's physical appeal; or when

45


one must give a lot of original thought to thetopic or examine existing records to arrive at anopinion (for instance, understanding the li-brary's contribution to the community's educa-tion). A formal (systematic) poll of a number ofpeople is no longer inspection, but a survey.

SurveyA survey is the means of systematically askingpeople about opinions, attitudes, perceptions,behaviors, and remembered facts that areimpossible to observe directly, such as experi-ences of library users. A survey may be con-ducted face to face, as an interview, or onpaper. Generally speaking, a survey generatesmore valid data than inspection or informalpolling, because the questions asked are consis-tent from person to person and the population isbroadly and systematically, rather than arbitrar-ily, sampled.

Some of the survey items suggested inAMPLE have been tested and are readily avail-able, as is the case in the survey items found inOMPL and in survey publications. In manycases, however, the survey item has yet to becreated.

Much has been written about surveying, andit is not the purpose of this book to serve as aprimer on survey research. However, three com-mon pitfalls of surveys should be heeded. First,many librarians, upon surveying the opinions oflibrary users, have assumed that they havetapped the opinions of the community in gen-eral. They are probably wrong. We can't assumethat users of a service represent the non-users ofthe service. Studies of public library users andnon-users stretching back 50 years point tomany differences among the two groups (forexample, Berelson 1949).

Second, in asking people's opinions on thelibrary or any of its features, remember that thepublic library institution is suffused with thelight of a strong halo effect. The public, throughtheir emotional attachment to the public libraryinstitution, is very much inclined to view it posi-tively. Even when the library does not give goodservicesay, fails to yield any of several books

requestedthe user is likely to be satisfied withthe library in general and even with that day'sservice. Research has found that, when askingfor opinions about any aspect of the library, ifthat aspect is broken down into its componentparts, one is likely to get a more unbiasedassessment (D'Flia and Walsh 1983). For in-stance, rather than asking a user, "Are you satis-fied with library reference service?" ask insteadspecific questions about the response to the lastquestion he or she asked, such as its complete-ness, its correctness, its speed, the nature of thelibrarian's greeting, etc.

Having said that, on some occasions, a surveyof the public's feelings about the public librarymay be a useful broad gauge of general emo-tional support and preparedness for, say, a taxreferendum.

Third, the information you get depends onthe questions asked. If an appropriate questionis missing from the questionnaire, the interviewschedule, or the observation checklist, it will gounobserved. If it is misstated, it will be misob-served.

Survey of Services

In surveying stakeholders regarding theirawareness of particular library services, theiruse of them, the importance of them, the dollarvalue of them, or their comparative worth vis-a-vis other services or products, you will need tocompile a comprehensive list of library services.In many cases, the list used in a survey will needto include services that are not offered, in orderto test the true reaction to the library's actualofferings. In preparing such a list, it is difficultto construct one that is internally consistent,with all items at parallel levels of specificity.

Appendix B, "Checklist of Library Services,"is a list of candidate library services. It wastaken from a study of users, managers, andtrustees of Alabama public library services(Kaske, Stephens, and Turner 1986), augmentedwith a set of reference and information servicesthat we developed independently. Although notexhaustive, the list offers a broad and reason-ably parallel set of service options and mayinspire you in building your own list.

46


Table 1. A Model of Public Library Effectiveness

PLUS IOMOMC PLI FSCS I ALD EIDI D+ I Notes

Dimension 1: Traditional Counts

1.1 USES AND USERSTotal uses of all services per

annum

Current registration percapita

Total users per annum percapita

x x

x

x

Tally the uses of all services, in-cluding materials, informationservices, and library facilities.

Available data or tally.

Survey of community. Gives asense of the library's marketpenetration.

12 VISITS TO LIBRARY

Annual visits (turnstile count)

Frequency of visits per visitorTime spent in building

Average number of servicesused during visits

x x x x x Available data. Without a turn-stile requires tally of visitorsentering.

Survey of users.Survey or observation of users'

time in library. See Van House,Weil, and McClure 1990.

Survey. See Van House, Weil, andMcClure 1990.

13 CIRCULATIONNumber of materials circulated

per annum... and per capita

Number of materials circulatedper person per visit

Types of materials borrowedper annum

x

x

x

x

x

x x

x

x

x

Available data.

Available data.Available data.

Tally (e.g., juvenile materials % ofcirculation to juvenile % of pop-ulation; juvenile materials % ofcirculation to juvenile % ofmaterials budget).

Total materials used x x Available data (circulation) andtally in-library use.

1.4 TOTAL EXPENDITURES

Total annual expenditure x x x Available data.Annual capital expenditureAnnual operating expenditure

x xx

Available data.Available data.

Annual income by source x x x Such as local, state, federal. Avail-able data.

1.5 REFERENCE VOLUME

Number of referencetransactions per annum

Patterns of reference usage

x x x

x

Available data or tally.

Tally (e.g., by time of day, day ofweek, season of year; by types ofspecific service, such as online,manual, instruction, etc.). Sur-vey (e.g., reference transactionsper user type).

47


Table 1. Continued

PLDS IOMPLI FSCS ALDOMC

E IF. I D I D+

I

Notes

1.6 VARIETY OF USERSUsers (grouped by demo-

graphic characteristics)as a percentage of total usersas a percent of the popula-

tion in each group

x

xx

x

x

E.g., age, gender, income, educa-tion, occupation, ethnicity. Pub-lic Library Data Service (ageonly). Survey combined withavailable data.

1.7. MATERIALS TURNOVER

Turnover rate

Turnover rate by type ofmaterial

x

x

x Available data. Calculate circula-tion + total volumes.

Same, by format, subject, etc.

1.8 MATERIALS EXPENDITUREMaterials expenditure per

annumx x x x Available data.

... and + total operatingexpenditures

Materials expenditure bycategory + total operatingoperating expenditures

x X

x

Available data.

By subject, type of material, usertype, branch or department: etc.The American Library Directoryincludes expenditure for materi-als by specific format categories.Available data or tally.

1.9 PROGRAM ATTENDANCEProgram attendance per annum

(audience size)Attendance at out-of-library

programs

x

x

x

x

x

x

Tally. In-library programs only.

Tally. In OMC only.

1.10 IN-LIBRARY USEIn-library use of materials... and as a % of circulation

xx

xx xx

x

x

Tally.Tally.

1.11 MATERIALS OWNED

Items held

Includes book, serial, audio, visual

Items by type, as a % of totalitems

x x x

, microform, and computer formatsx Available data or tally. PLDS:

books and serials only. TheAmerican Library Directoryincludes expenditure for materi-als by specific format categories.

x x Available data or tally (e.g., juve-nile, adult; format; classificationcategory).

1.12 STAFF SIZE

Staff sizeProfessional staff size per capitaNumber of staff + circulationNumber of public service staff +

users per annum

Public service staff per houropen

x x x xxx

x

x

Available data or tally.Available data or tally.Available data or tally.Tally. Easiness of this measure

depends on having data onusers per annum.

Available data.

48


Table 1. Continued

PLDSOMC

FSCS ALD II E+ D I D+ I Notes

1.13 REFERENCE FILL RATE

Reference fill rateCorrect answers to reference

questions

Scope and depth of referenceresources

x x

x

xx

Tally.Tally. See Lancaster 1988, 111-14,

for a concise presentation of anunobtrusive methodology forassessing correctness of answers.

Inspection. See appendix B,"Checklist of Library Services."

1.14 STAFF EXPENDITURES

Expenditure for personnel x x x Available data.. .. and as % of total

expendituresx x x Available data.

1.15 EQUIPMENT USAGE

Number of pieces ofequipment available, by type

Number of equipment uses. .. and per annumPercentage of time equipment

is in use

Tally (e.g., microfilm, projection,computer, TTY, etc.).

Tally.Tally.Tally. See Van House, Weil, and

McClure 1990; DeProspo, Alt-man, and Beasley 1973.

1.16 USE OF LIBRARY COMPARED TO

OTHER SERVICES/EVENTS

Library uses per annumcompared to other product orservice use

x Available data (circulation) andcalculation (e.g., attendance atsports events, commercial booksales or video rentals, televisionviewing, etc.).


2.1 MANAGERIAL COMPETENCE

Managerial competence x Easily done by inspection. A morevalid and more systematicapproach would require greateffort.

2.2 STAFF MORALEStaff morale x x Easily done by inspection. A more

valid, but difficult, approachcould employ survey instru-ments used in organizationdevelopment work.

2.3 STAFF QUALITYOverall staff quality

Total professionals + total staff

x Easily done by inspection. A moresystematic approach requiresdevelopment of a survey instru-ment.

Available data.

49


Table 1. Continued

PLDS IOMPLI FSCS ALDOMC

I E D I D+ I Notes

2.4 STAFF HELPFULNESSHelpful, courteous staff,

concerned about client

Level of staff assistance to users

x

x

x

x

Easier by inspection. Hard if asurvey is undertaken. See VanHouse and others 1987; Hatryand others 1992, 59: "Measure10: Percentage of persons usinglibrary who rate helpfulness andgeneral attitude of library staffas satisfactory."

Easier by inspection. Systematicdata will require a survey. Seealso dimension 1, "reference fillrate."

2.5 SUPPORT OF INTELLECTUAL

FREEDOM

Library endorsement ofintellectual freedomstatements

Use of materials regardless ofcontent, format, or treatment,by any user

x

x

Inspection. Evidence by writtenpolicy, resolutions, etc.

Inspection.

2.6 CONTRIBUTION OF LAYOUT,CATALOG, AND SIGNAGE TO SELF-

USE (Indicator #63)"Transparency" of building

layout

x x Inspection or survey.

Utility of catalog x x Inspection or survey.

Utility of internal signage x x Inspection or survey.

2.7 GOAL ACHIEVEMENTExtent to which formal library

objectives are achievedx Easier by inspection if quantified

objectives exist, if no writtengoals exist or if objectivesrequire extensive data collection.

2.8 EFFICIENCY OF LIBRARY

OPERATIONS

Operating expenditures percapita

x x x Available data.

Operating expenditures +number of total client usesper annum

x Available data. Dependent onhaving uses data.

Number of materials processed+dollars expended onmaterials processing

x Available data. May require refig-uring budget on information.

Operating expenditures +library activity index orworkload level

x Available data and tally. Requiresestablishing workload or activitymeasures.

2.9 WRITTEN POLICIES

Existence of written policies x

50

Inspection (e.g., policies exist forservices, fees, and collectiondevelopment).


Table 1. Continued

PLDS IOMPL FSCS ALD E+OMC

E I D I D+ I Notes

2.10 SAFETY OF USERS

Security of users of building,inside and outside

x Easier by inspection of such safetyfactors as rating on fire inspec-tions, currency of elevatorinspections; or tally of securityguards per hours open, safetystatistics.


3.1 COMMUNITY AWARENESS OFOFFERINGS

Community awareness oflibrary services

x

3.2 USERS' EVALUATION

User evaluation of servicereceived

x x

. .. immediately uponreceiving the service

x x

... after using the information/knowledge

x x

Survey. Use appendix B, "Check-list of Library Services": "Whichof the following services doesyour library/branch provide?"

Survey or informal polling ofusers. See D'Elia and Walsh1983; Van House and others1987, 131, for examples of a usersatisfaction survey. Easier byinspection or anecdotal evidence.

3.3 CONTRIBUTION TO COMMUNITY

WELL-BEING

Contribution of library tocommunity well-being

Contribution of library toindividual well-being

. .. and to subgroups (e.g.,business, students, etc.)

Contribution to education ofthe community.

Return on investment

x xSurvey of community leaders,

comparing library with otherservices. Easier by informalpolling or by inspection, consid-ering, for example, the library asa community symbol or monu-ment to community pride.Inspection.

Survey. See King Research, Ltd.1991, 63, "needs fill rate"; and21, "purpose of use."

By focussed informal polling orinspection; or by survey of users.

Survey and tally. Communitybenefits + library operatingexpenditure. However, there iscurrently no way of measuringthe benefit of the library in a sin-gle metric and rendering thatinto dollars.

51


Table 1. Continued

I PLDS IOOMCMPL I FSCS I ALD 11E+1EI010+INotes

3.4 SERVICES SUITED TO THE

COMMUNITY

Suitedness of services tocommunity

x Easier by inspection. Hard byinformal polling.

Extent to which target popu-lations are reached

x x Easy through available data andcalculation if appropriate demo-graphic data on each user, suchas zip code, exist. Difficult if aspecial survey is required.

3.5 PUBLIC OPINIONPublic opinion of library x By survey or informal polling.

Can be combined with a com-munity awareness survey.

3.6 FLEXIBILITY OF LIBRARY

MANAGEMENTAdaptability of the organiza-

tion and of management

x By long-term inspection of thelibrary's or management'sresponse to the external environ-ment.

Adoption of innovation, bothnumber and speed

x Inspection. See Damanpour andChilders 1985 for prototypechecklist.

3.7 STAFF SUITED TO THE COMMUNITYDemographics of staff

compared with demographicsof population

Ability of staff to servecommunity

x

x

Tally (e.g., ethnicity, language).Inspection of data.

Inspection.

3.8 STAFF CONTACT WITH USERS

Number of contacts betweenusers and service staff

Proportion of hours open whenstaff is available at servicepoints

x

x

Inspection.

-Tally, by systematic observation.

3.9 PUBLIC RELATIONSNumber of public relations

events per annum

x Tally (e.g., activities, exposures ofadvertisements, advertisingproducts, etc.).

Qualified staff member(s)assigned to public relations

x Inspection.

Amount of staff time spent onpublic relations

x Tally.

3.10 RELATIONS WITH COMMUNITY

AGENCIESNumber of formal groups

served per annum

x Tally. Would include non - schoolgroups, such as service and cul-tural organizations, city hall, etc.Included in OMC.

52


Table 1. Continued

PLDS FSCS MD II E+ EOMC

D+ 1 Notes

3.10 (continued)Number of non-service inter-

actions with other agencies'service points

x Tally (e.g., service on committees,speeches, etc.).

3.11 COMMUNITY ANALYSIS

Utilization of communitystudies in library decisions

x Inspection. Easy to determineexistence; performing commu-nity study is not easy.


4.1 COOPERATION WITH OTHERLIBRARIES

Cooperative activities withother libraries, including statelibrary agency

Membership in a formal librarycooperative

x

x

Inspection.

Inspection.

42 SPEED OF SERVICE

Turnaround hours for servicerequests

Turnaround days for reserves,interlibrary and intrasystemborrowings

User satisfaction with turn-around time

x x

x Tally.

Tally. In OMPL: "Document deliv-ery"; and in Hatry and others1992, 58: "Measure 8: Percentageof requests available within 7,14, and 30 days."

Survey. See Hatry and others1992, 58: "Measure 9: Percentageof persons using library whorate speed of service (e.g., bookretrieval and check-out) as satis-factory."

4.3 INFORMATION ABOUT OTHER

COLLECTIONS

Subscriptions to state-wide,regional, or national holdingsdatabases, manual orelectronic

x

4.4 INTERLIBRARY LOAN

Number of interlibrary (i.e.,intersystem) borrowingsper annum

x

Interlibrary borrowings fill rate x x x

Inspection of the extent of infor-mation about other collections.

Tally.

Tally. In OMPL, see "documentdelivery."

53


Table 1. Continued

PLDS I OM PL ESCS I A LD E+ I E I D I Di- I NotesOMC

4.5 MATERIALS AVAILABILITY

Fill rates by types of search(subject, author, title,browsing, homework)

Probability of materialsownership

Availability of materials owned

Overall user success rate

x x x

x

x

x

Survey. In OMPL and OMC.

Complex tally of titles held as a %of standard lists, such as BPR,BIP, Public Library Catalog. SeeDeProspo, Altman, and Beasley1973.

Complex tally of materials on theshelf as a % of materials owned.See DeProspo, Altman, andBeasley 1973.

Survey. See Van House, Weil, andMcClure 1990.

4.6 EXTENT SERVICES ARE FREE

Variety of services, materials,and facilities available freeof charge

x Inspection (e.g., videos, reserves,online and CD searching, pho-toreproduction, computer uses,meeting room use).


5.1 CONVENIENCE OF BUILDING

LOCATION

Convenience of site x Easier by inspection. Hard by sur-vey. See Hatry and others 1992,59: "Measure 15: Percentage ofusers who rate convenience assatisfactory" and"Measure 16:Percentage of non-user house-holds who give poor physicalaccessability as a reason fornon-use."

5.2 BUILDING EASY TO IDENTIFYBuilding clearly identifiable

from the streetx Inspection. See Hatry and others

1992, 76: "Measure 15," above.

5.3 PARKINGNumber of parking spaces

Availability of parking spaces

x x

x

Tally of total spaces (e.g., in dedi-cated lot or within x blocks). Orsurvey. See Hatry and others1992, 64: "Ease in parking."

Tally of % of spaces open.

5.4 BUILDING SUITABILITY

Square footage per capitaSeating capacity per capita

Available data.Tally.

54

Table I. Continued


PLDS IOM PL FSCS ALD E+ONIC

D D+ I Notes

5.4 (continued)Suitability of furniture and

equipment

Intensity of use of facilities x

x Survey. See Harry and others1992, 59: "Measure 13: Percent-age of persons using library whorate the comfort, crowdedness,noise, cleanliness, and tempera-ture/ventilation as satisfactory"and "Measure 14: Percentage ofnon-user households who citelack of comfort, crowdedness,noise, cleanliness, and tempera-ture/ventilation as reasons fornon-use." See also Willett 1992,after Harms' various environ-mental rating scales.

Tally. See Van House and others1987; DeProspo, Altman, andBeasley 1973.

5.5 BUILDING APPEALAppeal of library interior... and of library exterior

xx

x

xEasier by personal inspection.

Easy by expert inspection.


6.1 POLITICAL AND FISCAL VIABILITY

OF THE LIBRARY (Indicator #62)Ratio of actual revenue to

potential library revenueSize of budget compared to

similar librariesStability of funding

Political success of the library

x x

x

x

x

x Available data, using estimate ofpotential revenue from tax base.

Inspection of comparative data,such as PLDS and FSCS.

Available data with additionalcalculation (e.g., % increase/decrease of budget compared toa base year; or increase/decreaseof library budget compared toother services).

Inspection.

6.2 BOARD ACTIVENESS

Activeness of library board

Orientation of new boardmembers

Written bylaws for board,reviewed regularly

x

x

x

Easier by inspection. Easy by tallyof board attendance at meetings,education events, conferences,etc.

Inspection.

Inspection.

55


Table 1. Continued

I PLDS OMNI FSCS IOMC

AID I E+ Notes

6.3 VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS(Gifts, Money, Time)Dollar value of gifts of money,

materials, equipment

x Tally.

Hours of volunteer time perannum

x Tally.

Dollars raised through effortof volunteers

x Tally.

Activeness of Friends or othervolunteers in the library'spolitical arena

x Inspection.

6.4 LIBRARY PRODUCTS (Booklists,Guides, etc.)Number of library productions,

publications, and recordingsdistributed per annum percapita

6.5 ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF BUILDING

Energy efficiencyParticipation in a recycling

program

6.6 CONTINUING EDUCATIONFOR STAFF

Number of hours of continuingeducation attended + staffmember

Number of continuing educa-tion events attended perstaff member

Percentage of staff participatingin continuing education

6.7 PLANNING AND EVALUATIONLong-range, written planLong-term assessment of space

needsAnnual review and adjustment

of planEvaluation of library activities

and programs

6.8 PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN LIBRARY

DECISIONS

Defined mechanism for com-munity input to design anddevelopment of services andfacilities

Complaints procedure for usersPublic access to board meet-

ings and board documents

x Tally.

x

x Expert inspection.Inspection.

x

x

x

Tally.

Tally.

Tally.

x

x

x

x

Inspection.Inspection.

Inspection.

Inspection.

x

xx

Inspection.

Inspection.Inspection.

J6


Table 1. Continued

PLDS FSCS ALDOMC

EIDI 0+1 Notes


7.1 RANGE OF MATERIALS

Variety of formats of materials

Number of items in each formatBreadth of subjects in library's

collectionsDepth of holdings in library's

collections

x

x

xx

x

Inspection (e.g., computer soft-ware, book, journal, slide, audiodisc, audio cassette, video cas-sette, optical disc, etc.).

Available data or tally.Inspection.

Inspection.

7.2 RAMIE OF SERVICES

Number of services offered

Extent to which library offersall of services when open

Innovative program of services

x

x

x

Inspection. See appendix B,"Checklist of Library Services."

Inspection.

Inspection.

7.3 CONVENIENCE OF HamNumber of hours open per

weekRange of hours open

Convenience to users of hoursopen

Users, by hour

x

x

x

x

x

Tally. In FSCS: "Sum of hours ofall outlets" ("duplicated hours").

Tally. In FSCS: "Hours duringwhich a user can find service atone outlet or another" ("undu-plicated hours."

Survey. See Hatry and others1992, 59: "Measure 18: Percent-age of user households ratinghours of opening as satisfactory"and "Measure 19: Percentage ofnon-user households who givepoor hours as a reason for non-use."

Tally. Convenience as reflected inthe volume of activity in the var-ious hour blocks.

7.4 MATERIALS QUALrrY

Collection quality x Can be addressed through the tal-lies and surveys of "turnoverrate" (dimension 1), "materialsavailability" (dimension 4), and"currency of collection" (dimen-sion 7). See also Hatry and oth-ers 1992, 58: "Measure 7b: Per-centage of users who ratematerials as satisfactory" and"Measure 7c: Percentage of non-users who cite poor materialsas a reason for non-use." Canalso be addressed through the

57.


Table 1. Continued

I PLUSOMC

OMPI.1 FSCS I ALD II E 1131 D+ I Notes

7.4 (continued) conspectus approach (systematicinspection), as presented inBryant 1989. See Lancaster 1988,17-32, where alternative ap-proaches to the complex issue ofevaluating collections are dis-cussed.

7.5 NEWNESS OF MATERIALSMedian publication dateNew volumes per annum. .. and per capitaTitles added as a % of total

titles, per annumSpeed of acquisitions

xxx

x

x Tally.Available data.Available data.Tally.

Tally (i.e., median lapsed timebetween release date of a publi-cation and its appearance on theshelves).


8.1 HANDICAPPED ACCESSHandicapped accessibility x x Inspection, or expert inspection.

See King Research Ltd. 1990, 19:.. existence of facilities, such

as wheelchair ramps and park-ing spaces, or by rating degree ofaccessibility using scales (1 to5)"; and Code of Federal Regula-tions 1990, 576-91, for federalregulations regarding architec-tural barriers for the handi-capped.

8.2 SPECIAL GROUP SERVICES

Services to populations withspecial needs

x x Inspection, or expert inspection(e.g., the homebound and insti-tutionalized, ethnic minorities,the aged, underemployed, busi-ness and labor, local govern-ment).


ConclusionThis chapter has presented AMPLE in two ver-sions: the complete AMPLE, derived from theresponses of more than 2,500 people represent-ing seven major public library constituencies,and the short AMPLE, consisting of the mosthighly ranked indicators. AMPLE is a set ofdimensions, indicators, and suggested measuresthat can be used to identify the categories withinwhich a library will want to assess itself, todetermine the completeness of the library's ownsystem of assessment, and to develop or refineits assessment. In this chapter, we have pre-sented some advice on using AMPLE to developa set of measures for your library.

The next chapter looks more closely at a criti-cal issue in the assessment of public libraries aspublic sector organizations: identifying andaddressing the priorities of the library's manyand varied constituencies.

ReferencesAmerican Library Directory, 1991-1992. 1991. New

York: R. R. Bowker.Berelson, Bernard. 1949. The Library's Public.

New York: Columbia University Press.Bryant, Bonita. 1989. Guide for Written Collection

Policy Statements. Chicago: American LibraryAssociation.

Code of Federal Regulations 36, Chap. XI (July 1,1990). Washington, D.C.: Office of the FederalRegister, National Archives and Records Ad-ministration.

Damanpour, Fariborz, and Thomas Childers.1985. "The Adoption of Innovations in PublicLibraries." Library and Information ScienceResearch 7 (July-September): 231-46.

D'Elia, George, and Sandra Walsh. 1983. "UserSatisfaction with Library ServiceA Measureof Public Library Performance?" Library Quaterly 53 (April): 109-33.

DeProspo, Ernest R., Ellen Altman, and KennethE. Beasley. 1973. Performance Measures for Pub-lic Libraries. Chicago: American Library Asso-ciation.

Hatry, Harry P., Louis H. Blair, Donald M. Fisk,John M. Greiner, John R. Hall, Jr., and PhilipS. Schaenman. 1992. How Effective Are YourCommunity Services? Procedures for MeasuringTheir Quality, 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.:Urban Institute and the International City/County Management Association.

Kaske, Neal, Annabel Stephens, and PhilipTurner. 1986. "Alabama's Public Libraries asSeen by Patrons, Administrators, andTrustees." Tuscaloosa: University of Ala-bama (typescript).

King Research, Ltd. 1990. Keys to Success: Perfor-mance Indicators for Public Libraries. London:Office of Arts and Libraries.

Lancaster, F. W. 1988. If You Want to EvaluateYour Library . . . . Champaign: University ofIllinois.

Public Library Data Service Statistical Report '90.Annual. Chicago: Public Library Association.

Task Force on Federal-State Cooperative Sys-tem for Public Library Data. 1989. An ActionPlan for a Federal-State Cooperative -System forPublic Library Data. Washington, D.C.: U.S.National Commission on Libraries and Infor-mation Science; National Center for EducationStatistics.



Van House, Nancy A., Beth T. Weil, and CharlesR. McClure. 1990. Measuring Academic LibraryPerformance: A Practical Approach. Chicago:American Library Association.


Willett, Holly G. 1992. "Designing an EvaluationInstrument: The Environment Rating Scale inProcess." journal of Youth Services in Libraries49, no. 2 (Winter): 165-73.

59.

54

Applying AMPLEOn the use of AMPLE, with lessons from writers andpracticing librarians about how to communicate withstakeholders, especially the critical external ones.

Talking to Stakeholders,GenerallyIndicators and measures of effectiveness are use-ful internally and externally. Internally, theyprovide information that can be the basis fordecisions about controlling and planning libraryoperations (such as circulation processes, acqui-sitions policy, or staff scheduling). Externally,indicators and measures of effectiveness can be abasis for setting the library's direction and mixof service offerings, vis-a-vis its community; fortaking action in the social, economic, and politi-cal context; and for communicating with theindividuals and groups who influence library-related decisions.

From here on, the book concentrates on exter-nal decisions and on the "contextual" stakehold-ersthe externals, who influence the library'sfuture from outside, and the boundary-span-ners, whose influence is partially inside, par-tially outside the library.

We have said throughout this book that thetask of the library manager is both to assesslibrary performance and to present it to others.For a library to get the resources that it needs,performing well is not sufficient. People whohave power over library decisions, if they arenot themselves clients of the library, cannotdirectly assess organizational performance. Andeven those who are clients can generally assessonly a small part of it. The library has to find away to communicate its effectiveness to the

political decision-makers in a way that is usefulfor both the library and the decision-makers.

Managers must stay well attuned to the personal andpolitical dynamics of the groups with whom they deal.But good decisions cannot be made without good infor-mation. (Chase and Reveal 1983, 134)

The choice of indicators to use in evaluatingan organization is, according to MacRae (1985,193), "a political question and not simply a sci-entific one." He claims that among the politicalconsiderations that contribute to the choice arethe:

greater needs of the society or communitythat must be attended to (such as reducingilliteracy, empowering the powerless, sharingcultures, or strengthening the economy);more particular information needs of thestakeholders in arriving at decisions (whatkind of information they want, or will useatwhat depth and breadth, and in which for-mats); andcosts of generatingcollecting, tabulating,analyzing, preparing, publishing, etc.theinformation.

If assessment is intended to produce informa-tion for political decision-making, the library hasto determine who its political audiences are andwhat they most want to know. What the audi-ences want to know may well be different fromwhat the library thinks they need to know.

Up to this point, have dealt with themodel as a whole, looking at the library's wholeprogram of assessment. This chapter considershow to use AMPLE in more targeted communi-cation with individual stakeholder groups. Firstwe discuss how one talks with stakeholders

60

Applying AMPLE 55

about the effectiveness of a public sector organi-zation; then we address the public library's spe-cific stakeholders and what they are likely towant to know.

In the political arena, those deciding whetherto support an organization look at three things(Heymann 1987, 1):

1. what the organization does that affects theirinterests;

2. what its activities and interests say about whatis important to the organization and whose con-cerns or views are to be given weight; and

3. what alliances with powerful organizations andindividuals its words and actions seemintended to build.

Stakeholders' interests certainly vary overspace and time. Part of building an assessmentprogram and creating a communication strategyis to identify the agendas of your stakeholders.This is an essential part of talking to them, ofrepresenting the library to them.

You are what you measure.

The information that the library uses todescribe itself also tells the observer what andwho the library thinks is important, what itsgoals are, what it has been able to achieve and,by implication, what it can accomplish in thefuture. If the library monitors its service to chil-dren, for example, it is saying that children areimportantthat the library is concerned enoughabout its services to children to assess them sep-arately, as well as that it can be of use to chil-dren. Similarly, materials and services to ethnicand language minorities demonstrate the li-brary's interest in contributing to these commu-nities. But the library must also demonstrate thatthe library is providing services used by the tar-get groupsthat is, that the library is successful.

Knowledge should be interesting, understandable, andrelevant to your interests.

(John Scully, quoted in Wurman 1989, 185)

Representing an organization's effectivenessis equivalent to arguing for what it needs:money, attention, appreciation, patronage, secu-rity, a change in the environment, and so on.Chief among the arguments (Pfeffer and Salan-cik 1978, 193-97) is that the organization is legiti-matethat its goals are valid. Legitimacy mayneed to be argued strenuously in the case ofsome organizations. Welfare organizations of alltypes are continually pres d to evidence their

legitimacy, for example. Other organizations,such as police, are rarely questioned on theirlegitimacy.

The public library may fall somewhere inbetween. It is probably widely accepted amongthe various stakeholders that the public libraryhas a valid position in the community; but theexact nature of that position and the amount ofcommunity resource required to maintain itthere are unclear. It is up to library manage-ment, in communicating to the external stake-holders, to direct the representations of libraryeffectiveness so as to establish the legitimacy ofthe library in the stakeholders' mindsto arguefor the worthiness of the library's program ofactivities.

Since establishing legitimacy "generally im-plies that an organization reviews its pastactions and outputs in the context of currentsocietal values and interests" (Pfeffer and Salan-cik 1978, 195), it is critical for the library to com-municate in terms that relate to the current socialscenery, whatever that may be.

Information can also be used to control tosome extent the expectations that others have ofthe organization (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978). Byfocusing the information presented, library man-agement can, to some degree, set the criteria ofgoodness and badness ("The library circulated2.3 titles per capita, and that needs improve-ment; we contacted 47 percent of school-agedchildren this year, and that is good.").

The outside worldthe public, elected offi-cials, budget officers, and so oncomes to manypublic institutions and, specifically, libraries,with low or undeveloped expectations. They fre-quently consider, when the per capita cost of theservice is relatively low and the perceived percapita benefit is low (Wilson 1989) or uncertain,that there is little at stake and that virtually anybenefit received is valuable. Generally, the pub-lic has little idea of the full program of libraryservices and the parameters within which alibrary can be effective. Does a library giveanswers to users' questions? Which mediashould a library offer? How many users percapita should there be? What is an acceptableturnover rate for a book? How much should alibrary cost? How many professional staffshould there be? Moreover, the difficulty ofobserving the activities of a service organiza-tionwith fleeting interpersonal transactions,often observable only to its participantsplacesthe organization itself in the primary positionfor reporting on its activities.

Cl

56 Applying AMPLE

In speaking to its political audience, the li-brary has to consider not just the content, butthe manner of the presentation:

New information must fit into what we alreadyknow. People naturally seek to make a connec-tion between new data and their existing map ofthe world and prior experience (Wurman 1989).The task of the manager, then, is to use thatprior knowledge to help people to understandthe library appropriately because they will in-deed use their prior knowledge, whether appro-priately or not. Unfortunately, most of its audi-ence believes that they know more about the

You only learn something relative to something youunderstand. (Wurman 1989, 168)

library than they do and may be resistant tochanging their mental image. Budget officers,for example, may be so used to circulation as ameasure of library goodness, finding it easy tocalculate and understand, facilitating instantcross-library and cross-branch comparisons, thatit may be difficult to get them to listen toanother, especially a more complex, measure,such as item-use-day or even total annual uses.

Information must be presented in terms that theaudience will understand. Generally, one mustunderstand their point of view and prior knowl-edge. This means using their language, drawingparallels with other things that they alreadyknow and care about (services, events, and soon), presenting information in easily understoodand familiar ways. "Materials turnover" doesn'tmean much to outsiders; "average use per item"is more understandable; and "return on materi-als investment" is even more so.

Information must be put in context. A circulationper capita of 7.5 per annum means little to theexternal stakeholders. The highest circulationper capita in the region, however, or a circula-tion per capita 20 percent higher than a rivalcountythese get attention. One hundred thou-sand library users per month may impress thoseinsiders who know that last year it was only50,000 per month; for those who don't, a moreimpressive statement is, "More people used thelibrary than attended sporting events in thissports-proud city." Every city councilmemberknows what a full football stadium looks like.The comparisons make the data intelligible.

Another example comes from Sam Clay,

director of the Fairfax County Public Library,through a personal communication: "I lose inbooks each year the cost equivalent of three firetrucks." After that revelation, his fundingauthorities' challenges to the need for a newsecurity system ceased. Interestingly, this is astory than can be built only on statistics. You

Numbers become meaningful only when they can berelated to concepts that can be viscerally grasped,

(Wurman 1989, 178)

have to have the data in order to make the com-parisons. But it nicely illustrates the lessons of"meet them on their own terms" and "tell thema story," for it translates numbers (dollars, vol-umes, and so on) into terms that have immedi-ate associativealmost visualpower, vis-a-visone of the fender's prominent headaches, thenotorious cost of replacing fire trucks.

You have to build off things you understand. Compar-isons enable recognition. (Wurman 1989, 178)

Local government is very concerned with"spatial datacomparing conditions in localneighborhoods" (MacRae 1985, 305) for at leasttwo reasons: the comparisons help make senseof the data (if this branch has the lowest use percapita of any in town, that's probably not good),and an enduring public concern is equity of ser-vices across neighborhoods and socioeconomicgroups. Therefore, most library managers wantdata that compare neighborhood with neighbor-hood. Many of the measures in AMPLE can besubdivided for localities within a city. This isespecially true in larger urban settings, wheregood assessment can show a complex picture ofpluralistic, heterogeneous communities and candraw a picture of service that compares localityto locality. Indicators related to service offeredand service usedsuch as the numbers of mate-rials owned, visits to the library, reference vol-umeare likely to vary within a system oflibrary outlets.

Convey the message vividly and succinctly. Graph-ics can convey complex information memorablyand quickly. The proliferation of computerswith graphics capabilities has made this easy;but it has also led to an epidemic of bad graph-ics. Several sources discuss the use of graphicsfor quantitative data. We refer you particularlyto the inspiring Envisioning Information (Tufte

1990).

G2

Applying AMPLE 57

This is not intended to be a tutorial in creat-ing graphics, but some considerations for creat-ing good graphics are worth noting:

A graphic should be able to stand on its own.It shouldn't require text to explain it. Peoplesitting in an audience looking at overheads orreaders thumbing through a report may notlisten to or read your explanation; and agraphic often gets photocopied and separatedfrom its text. Is your graphic presented andlabelled clearly enough to speak for itself?Don't try to do too much with one graphic.Decide what you most want to convey and doit. Are you trying to show changes over time,or differences across branches? Changes inabsolute magnitude, or in relative size?Test out your graphics. Show them to some-one uninformed about the subject. Ask thatperson to paraphrase the graphics; ask whatquestions the graphics leave unanswered.

In learning to do graphics, pay attention towhat you seein the newspaper, in other peo-ple's reports, whereverand notice which oneswork well, and why.

Some examples of very compelling displaysof data were found a few years ago in Egg maga-zine in a report on the quality of life at selectedrecreational sites in Los Angeles (McAuley1990). Figure 17 shows the data on the "Chanceof Stepping in Something Gross."

The report and its data displays were de-signed to provoke, outrage, and amuse at leastas much as to inform. It is doubtful that any

Chine* of StoppingIn Smoothing Gross

laae Ca-,o PaDog aa.

Sa,m ,a Me.

So,. BOA: Saar, Mee'Ve".ce Bra, Su,

Morwamo e adCats na is aniD.s^e, a CI

00,0,

Far.c. Va,,

, liar, Ilia,r1

Moon' a.,01 t ,orV aro Viry

1-1.

11..r.a-1, p EinnvoSr,'.,

Courtesy Our Designs. Inc New York Crly

Figure 17. Chance of Stepping in Something Gross

03

hard data were collected in this case. But the les-son is that the displays easily capture thereader's attention and make a simple point, withimpact. The lesson is that presentation can be asimportant as the data in communicating a mes-sage of effectiveness. Displays of library datacould employ Egg-type techniques, invoking theprovocative, outrageous, and amusing elements,judiciously. Messages with social, economic,political, and performance meaning can be com-municated vividly and succinctly to the stake-holdersmessages such as the impact of materi-als expenditures on circulation; or hours openon visits to the library.

The Colorado State Library, for years, hassupported a Library Research Service. It regu-larly investigates questions related to the effec-tiveness of Colorado's libraries and reports themto libraries and library stakeholders. All of thereports are easily read and understood by peo-ple without training in research or conversant indata displays.

One of the services, Peer Data for ColoradoAcademic Libraries, generates and displayscomparative data on selected library measures.The bar chart for materials expenditures isshown in figure 18. The Colorado example relieson pre-existing computer software and, unlikethe Egg display, uses cut-and-paste rather thanoriginal artwork. The value of this kind of pre-sentation is that it offers comparative data toexternal stakeholders who may need to be edu-cated in the standards of goodness for the vari-ous aspects of libraries. This example can easilybe translated for public library applications, andthe Public Library Data Service and FSCS pro-vide the raw material for doing so.

Another example from Colorado, directlyrelated to public libraries, concerns the salariesof public library directors (Colorado State Li-brary and Adult Education Office 1991) (figure19). It would be easy to mark the salary of thelocal director on this histogram, for compara-tive purposes.

Stories vs. Data

Storytelling is another way of putting information incontext and giving you memory. (Wurman 1989, 237)

Data, even graphically presented, are not theonly, or even always the best, way to conveyinformation. People remember vivid stories bet-ter than abstract arguments. They remember

58 Applying AMPLE

Institution

Wayne a .1.11.1.1..1.1MMINIMEIN $4,0

Houston

Akron

Calif. St. Fullerton

Calif. St. Long Beach -11.11=11.11111 $1.8

Calif. St. Northridge $1.9

$2.5

$2.1

$2.1

Calif. St. Sacramento

Memphis St.

Calif. St. Los Angeles

Auraria (campus)

$0.0 $2.0 $3.0

Dollars (millions)

Figure 18. Materials Expenditures for Auraria Library and Selected Peer Libraries, 1990

Percentage Change, 1986-9030.0%

20.0% 16.4%18.2%

10.0% 8.3%

0.0%

-10.0%

-20.0%

-30.0% -25.6%

-40.0%Under 10,000- 250,000- Consumer2,500 24,999 499,999 Prices

Population-Served RangeSource: Library Research Service Based on Municipal Year Book Data

Figure 19. Average Salary Increases for Western Pub-lic Library Directors in Selected Population Ranges,1986-90

best of all that which happens to themselves;then the stories that they hear firsthand fromparticipants; and finally good stories that theyhear from other sources. In our interviews,

$4.0 $5.0

many local officials illustrated their points withstories told to them by their constituents. Oraltraditions have relied on myths and parables toconvey principles for living-for good reason.

We all know the impact of stories of personalachievement and failure:

a welfare mother who became independentafter participating in the library's graduateequivalency diploma program;

the author who was inspired by library mate-rials to write the great American novel;

the underachiever who was turned around bythe caring librarian; and

the student who could not do an assignmentbecause the materials weren't there.

There are also examples in the public libraryfield of anecdotes and data being merged. Oneof the best of recent years is found in the popu-lar report of the five-year plan of the FreeLibrary of Philadelphia (1991). The report con-sists of the library's role statements interleavedwith its goals and objectives, current data onusers, and quotations and photographs oflibrary users. A composite illustration of severalpages is shown in Figure 20. Note that the"anecdote" is told in the photograph and quota-tion of the user, which relates directly to thelibrary's role-"Answer Place"-which, in turn,relates directly to the data presented.

E4

Applying AMPLE 59

ROLE 2: THE ANSWER PLACE

People expect to find something about everything at thelibrary. Whether it's a question related to a business plan, avacation idea, a homework assignment, or a new career,people want answers.

ERIC W. JOHNSON

"I call the reference department one or two hundred times ayear! I think the librarians are very close to saints. They'll lookthrough several books in detail in order to answer a question.I feel as if I have the world at my ear."

GOAL 1: MORE ACCURATE, UP-TO-DATE

REFERENCE INFORMATION

'94 Create easier access to library holdings with abetter on-line computer catalog.

Update community Information collections andagency files annually.

GOAL 2: FASTER REFERENCE INFORMATION

'93 Determine feasibility of a central library periodicalcenter.

Increase available shelf space at central library.

Upgrade the telephone system; include portablephones and automatic answering machines

'94 Provide dial-in access to the on-line catalog onweekends and evenings.

'95 Establish a network for information deliverybetween all branches for same-day delivery ofdocuments.

Create a telephone reference service for hoursthe library is not open.

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

.5

0

Millions 1975 1980 1985

Questions Answered 1975-1990

Figure 20. Role 2: The Answer Place

1990

Talking to the ParticularStakeholders

Moving from general issues in talking withstakeholders, the rest of this chapter considersthe public library's various stakeholder groups,

G5

rIr

1

what they most want to know about the library,and how to use AMPLE to design a system ofassessing and communicating library goodnessin a multifaceted political environment.

AMPLE works as a checklist for highlightingthe indicators and, subordinately, measures thatare preferred by the library's stakeholders in

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

60 Applying AMPLE

general, and by particular stakeholders or stake-holder types whom you have identified as keyactors in your library's future. Obviously, this ispart of building a program of assessment, and itmoves us toward the communication aspect ofrepresenting the library.

In identifying stakeholders, you should keepin mind that individuals may hold several differ-ent stakes in the organization. This is certainlytrue with regard to libraries. A possible explana-tion for the similarity of indicator rankingsamong the seven stakeholder groups of the Pub-lic Library Effectiveness Study is that they allplayed the role of library user at some point intheir lives. Their responses may have beensomewhat homogenized and the differences,role to role (stake to stake), obscured. It is con-ceivable that the same person would occupy therole of local official and library user; or of com-munity leader and trustee; or of user and friendof the library.

Further, Pfeffer and Salancik (1978, 30-31)assert that it is sets of behaviors, rather than indi-

go viduals, that should provide the focus for identi-fying the organization's external forces. A grossway of enumerating behaviors is to identify thevariety of key roles played in the library's envi-ronment (as well as internally)identifyingstakeholder groups for your library on the basisof the various stakeholding roles being played.Only then would one identify the persons tocommunicate with regarding the library.

Stakeholders are generally classified as inter-nal (members of the organization) or external.However, this classification is a continuum, nota dichotomy, as people vary in the extent towhich they belong to the organization. Mills(1986), for example, says that users of serviceorganizations, especially those where self-ser-vice or coproduction is significant (see chapter4), are partial members or the organization.

Stakeholders, via the Public LibraryEffectiveness StudyThe Public Library Effectiveness Study surveyedmembers of seven key public library constituentgroups and asked what indicators they wouldfind useful in evaluating or describing thelibrary. (Chapter 5 describes the groups in detailand presents the study method.) We foundslight differences in survey responses acrossgroups. In the in-depth interviews with selectedrespondents, and in subsequent discussionswith library leaders, we heard much greater dif-ferences across constituent groups, leading us to

believe that our survey instrument was not sen-sitive or comprehensive enough to fully reflectthe differences among groups. The discussion inthis chapter about constituent group desires andpreferences, therefore, is based on the surveyresponses, the interviews, other discussions withpublic library leaders, and the writings of otheranalysts concerned with decision-making andorganizational effectiveness in the public sector.

Figure 21 summarizes the responses of theseven constituent groups surveyed. One of thefirst things that jumps off the matrix is that sev-eral indicators are held as "very important" byall stakeholder groups:

Staff QualityEfficiency of Library OperationsStaff HelpfulnessCommunity Awareness of OfferingsServices Suited to the CommunityMaterials AvailabilityConvenience of Building LocationRange of MaterialsRange of ServicesConvenience of HoursMaterials Quality

Yet there are points of disagreement. In whatfollows, we will discuss expected and observeddifferences among the stakeholder groups, pos-sible reasons for these differences, and how touse this information in talking to constituentgroups. Later in this chapter, we will discussmethods of presenting the AMPLE data.

External StakeholdersPfeffer and Salancik (1978) assert that the exter-nal ("contextual") forces are critical in determin-ing the fate of an organization because they con-trol the resources without which there would beno organization. The entire range of externalstakeholders is often difficult to identify. For acomplex public institution, such as a library, theindividuals and groups who have actual orpotential power over decisions about the librarycan be varied and hidden. The resources thatthey control are of two basic kinds: the pursestrings, and the attention of those appointed andelected officials who control the purse strings.

It seems to usand there is a lot of literaturein supportthat many public libraries have notbeen good at the care and feeding of the externalstakeholders in the past and long to know howto talk to them, persuade them, sell them on thelibrary program. That is, public libraries have

66

Applying AMPLE 61


Uses and Users

CL LO FR TR US LM LS

t t t * t * *

Visits to Library t t * $ *

Circulation 1- * -I- $Reference Volume $ $ $ $ I I- tVariety of Users $ $ $ t $ $ $Materials Turnover $ $ $ $ t $ $Materials Expenditure $ t t t 1- * *

Total Expenditures + + $ + t I- tProgram Attendance t t $ $ t $ $In-Library Use $ t $ I t $ $Materials Owned t t I- 1- t t *

Staff Size $ t t t t t tReference Fill Rate t $ $ $ t I-

Staff Expenditures $ $ $ t $ $ $Equipment Usage $ $ $ $ $ t $

Use of Library Compared to Other $ $ $ $ t t $Service Events


Managerial Competence * * * t t *

Staff Morale + t * * * *

Staff Quality * * * * *

Staff Helpfulness * * * * *

Support of Intellectual Freedom t $ * t * 1- tEfficiency of Library Operations * * * * * 4

Written Policies $ t $ I- $ t 1-

Goal Achievement I- t t * t t tSafety of Users $ $ t $ t $ $


Community Awareness of Offerings * * * *

Users' Evaluation * * t * t * *

Contribution to Community Well-Being * * * * t t *

Services Suited to the Community * * * * * *

Public Opinion * * * * t * *

Flexibility of Library Management * t t * t t tStaff Suited to Community t 1- -I- 1- -I- t tPublic Relations $ $ t t $ $ t

= Very important indicator (i.e., within the top 20 for that stakeholder group)t = Important indicator (i.e., between 21 and 40 for that stakeholder group)

= Not very important indicator (i.e., between 41 and 61 for that stakeholder group)§ = Rating data were not collected on this indicator.

Figure 21. Stakeholders' Preferences for Indicators

67(continued)

62 Applying AMPLE

CL LO FR TR US LM LS

Dimension 3: (continued)

Staff Contact with Users t t t t t t -I-

Relations with Community Agencies t t t t t t tCommunity Analysis t t t t t t t


Information about Other Collections t t t t + t tInter-Library Loans t t t t t t tCooperation with Other Libraries t t -I- + t tSpeed of Service * * * t * tMaterials Availability * * * * *

Extent Services Are Free * * t * t t


Convenience of Building Location * * * * * * *

Building Easy to Identify 1- t * t t * 1-

Parking * t t t * t 1

Building Suitability 1. 1- -I- 1- * t t

Building Appeal t t t t -t :t t


Political and Fiscal Viability of the Library § § § § § § §

Board Activeness 1 t 1 t I t tVoluntary Contributions 1 t t t t t tLibrary Products I t 1 t -I t tEnergy Efficiency of Building I t t t t t tContinuing Education for Staff t t t t t t tPlanning and Evaluation t t f -I- t t tPublic Involvement in Library Decisions t t t t I t t


Range of Materials * * * * ol *

Range of Services * * * * * * *

Convenience of Hours * * * * * * *

Materials Quality * * * * * *

Newness of Materials * 1- t t t t

Dimension8: Service to Special Groups

Handicapped Access * * * t * t t

Special Group Services 1- * * t * t t

Figure 21. (continued)

= Very important indicator (i.e., within the top 20 for that stakeholder group)

t Important indicator (i.e., between 21 and 40 for that stakeholder group)Not very important indicator (i.e., between 41 and 61 for that stakeholder group)

§ = Rating data were not collected on this indicator.

68

Applying AMPLE 63

been representing themselves better to the inter-nal than to the external interests. Thus, this bookspends a large amount of time on communicat-ing with the contextual stakeholders.

The external constituencies of the public li-brary identified in the Public Library Effective-ness Study and their particular interests are asfollows.

Elected officials. According to Heymann (1987;126-27), legislators have five major categories ofconcern:

1. the merits of the proposal: both what theythink is good for their jurisdiction andwhat they believe the contituents withwhom they identify are entitled to on thisoccasion;

2. what their votes will mean in terms ofmaintaining electoral support;

3. how their positions and actions will affecttheir influence on other matters;

4. what is required for the continued healthof the legislative process as a whole; and

5. demands of loyalty and friendship.

A group of public library leaders (Van Houseand Childers 1991, 275) identified the major cur-rent social and political concerns which affectofficials' (and the public's) assessment of thepublic librarythe pressing issues in their juris-dictions and for their constituentswhich relateto the public library as:

economic development, including attractingand nurturing business, bolstering job oppor-tunities and job preparedness, and facilitatingthe job search;education of the citizenry, largely as a supple-ment to a failing public education system;the appeal of service agencies to diverse audi-ences, with special attention to the non-English speaking, the illiterate, and the disad-vantaged; andthe quality of management of the publicenterprise, which includes demonstrating pro-ductivity, being a good team player, demon-strating political savoir faire, and educatingthem about what the library can do and thecriteria by which it is to be judged. The lastpoint directly led these two authors to con-ceive and write this book.

We would expect elected officials to be mostconcerned with library outputs and outcomes(impact on the community), and with whichparts of the community are being served. In ourinterviews, we also found that they were con-

cemed with the broader public sector issues thatconcern the citizenry, including waste, equity ofservices, and, in general, managerial competenceas a determinant of efficiency in the use of pub-lic resources. Since elected officials depend onthe voting public for their continued electoralsuccess, their concerns have to echo those oftheir constituents.

Elected officials are also concerned about howtheir vote on library matters fits into the largerpolitical decision-making structure. For exam-ple, a city councilmember in a city with districtelections told us that, in matters concerning abranch library in another district, he woulddefer to the wishes of the councilmember forthat district, and would expect her to do thesame on issues affecting his district.

The Public Library Effectiveness Study resultsgenerally confirm these expectations (see figure21): local officials were most concerned with theindicators that fell under commuity fit, InternalProcesses, Service Offerings, and Services toSpecial Groups. (Note that the Public LibraryEffectiveness Study did not distinguish betweenelected and appointed local officials.)

Appointed officials. Appointed officials want tosucceed in their jobs and to look good to theelected officials and the public (who influenceelected officials) in order to earn the supportthey need to do their jobs. A good library direc-tor helps his or her superiors avoid headachesand create success (Chase and Reveal 1983).When the library gets attention, the attentionshould be positive and reflect well on the libraryand local government (Van House and Childers1991).

In looking at the library, we would expectappointed officials to share the elected officials'concerns for results and for the distributionalimpact of services. In addition, they would bemore concerned about internal organizationalprocesses. A city manager told us that he didn'tknow what a good library should do, but as amanager he knew a good manager when he sawone and could trust him or her to run a goodlibrary. The key indicator of effectiveness forthis city official is Managerial Competencewhich can be obliquely suggested in many ways(economy of operation; good budget; stablestaff; high use by the public; and so on), but isvery hard to measure directly.

The general public. The public consists of con-sumers or potential consumers of public ser-vices; it also includes the taxpayers who support

r:a

64 Applying AMPLE

them. They are concerned about specific pro-grams and services for themselves or clientgroups about whom they care, for whatever rea-son. For example, children, especially children atrisk, are a client group about whom many in thecommunity care.

The public also cares about power relation-ships and equity, what the distribution of publicservices says about who is important and whogets what. It is common, for example, for com-munities to fight for branch libraries as a symbolof their power and the attention paid to them,regardless of whether they use it.

The public also shows concern over enduringissues about the public sector's use of taxmonies, including waste, corruption, and exces-sive government interference in people's lives(Heymann 1987), independent of the particulargovernment unit or service under consideration.

And, finally, the public is concerned abouthow individual public sector decisions relate tobroader social concerns, such as how libraryspending can help in the public education crisisor in a faltering local economy. The public isconcerned that its limited tax dollars be usedwell, for worthwhile and cost-effective pro-grams (see chapter 1).

The Public Library Effectiveness Study didnot survey members of the general public, so wecannot confirm these expectations from our sur-vey data. We did, however, survey two otherexternal groups who are closely related to thegeneral public: community leaders and libraryusers.

Community leaders. For public libraries, commu-nity leaders include the heads of cultural, educa-tion, and media enterprises (such as museums,school districts, or newspapers), heads of influ-ential civic organizations (such as communityimprovement associations or neighborhoodassociations), leaders of industry (such as thepresident of the chamber of commerce or a high-level manager of a major firm), and others whoare considered to speak for the larger commu-nity. Community leaders represent, but are alsooften out in front of the public: they may iden-tify problems and trends before the public as awhole does. They may see themselves asguardians of the public trust and watchdogs ofpublic expenditures. Because community lead-ers are less constrained by public opinion thanelected officials, they may be able to take moreradical stands on some issues. Many representor lead special interest groups.

Community leaders can be expected to care

about the larger social and political agenda oftheir community, quality of government, andefficiency of public services, as well as issuesmore specific to the library, primarily servicesand distributional impact, secondarily internalprocesses. From figure 21, it appears that ourcommunity leaders were not as concerned abouttraditional Library Service Counts as aboutCommunity Fit and Service Offerings.

Library users. Library users are concerned aboutthe services that they themselves use and theother characteristics of the library they value.Branch library users, for example, may knowthat the selection of materials is greater at themain library, but they may prefer the ambiance ofthe branch and its role as a neighborhood center.

Our user respondents were most concernedabout materials," "service offerings," and "inter-nal processes." The first is predictable. The sec-ond is more of a surprise until one looks at theindicators included in that dimensionmany ofwhich directly affect users, such as Staff Qualityand Helpfulness. Users were the group most con-cerned about Physical Facilities with which, ofcourse, they have more experience than anygroup other than staff. They had surprisingly lit-tle interest in the Traditional Counts with whichlibraries most often assess themselves.

Internal StakeholdersAs noted in chapter 4, Wilson (1989) says thatexternal forces, such as interest groups and for-mal governors, influence the direction and effectof an organization. But he argues that a publicorganization's being is also defined by howwhat he calls the operatorsin our case, librari-ans, and library techniciansand management(library directors) see their critical tasks. Indeed,the external world may mandate a broad mis-sion for the public organization, may providethe wherewithall for success to a greater orlesser degree, and may grant or withhold thediscretion to operate freely. Once such parame-ters are laid down, if they are sufficiently uncon-straining, the public organization often has agreat deal of latitude in defining its own criticalfocus and how it operates. The internals havemajor control. (Remember our city managerwho said that he didn't know what a libraryshould do.)

In fact, public libraries enjoy a wide latitude,as public organizations go, since the publictends to have a fairly simple and naive view of

70

Applying AMPLE 65

public libraries (often defining public libraryservice as that which their local public librarydoes, and no more). Some knowledgeable usershave a broader conception of the library's stock-in-trade (information and information materialsin many different formats). In some instances,the community has made the library a semi-independent organization (by incorporating itunder a board of trustees or establishing anautonomous tax base). In such circumstances,where operating discretion is broad, Wilson(1989) says that the operating members wieldtremendous influence on what the organizationis or is not.

Moreover, the public library is a professionalbureaucracy, as Mintzberg (1989) defines it,which is characterized by having an "operatingcore" that is relatively powerful. Remember thediscussion in chapter 4 about the high degree ofindependence of professionals in a service orga-nization characterized by indeterminant technol-ogy. The actions of individual staff membershave a major impact on deciding the true operat-ing mission of the organization.

In an environment in which staff have widelatitude and a structure where the operatingcore is typically strong, library professionals canbe expected to play a major role in deciding thelibrary's essential nature: whether the libraryserves the educational or leisure or vocationalneeds of the citizenry; is a utility linking citizensto all the world's information materials; offersdeep or shallow collections; strives to reach thetraditionally non-using public; and other things.To get a sense of just how much latitude the pro-fessionals have, consider how much variationoften exists between neighboring libraries; andhow much a change in top management canalter the nature of a library and its services.

Management and public services staff, how-ever, often have somewhat different views. Inmany small library outlets, such as communitybranches, the roles of library manager andlibrary services staff may converge in a singleperson. But in larger organizations, manage-ment and the public services staff may differsubstantially in their roles and their views.

Public services staff. The public services staff, asboundary-spannersthat is, people at that"boundary" of the organization who interactwith the external world in the person of theuserhave a dual loyalty to the organizationand to its clients (Hasenfeld 1983). They areoften especially concerned that the library isdoing what their clients need and want, and

even act as advocates for their clients. The PublicLibrary Effectiveness Study shows their interestto be strongly focused on indicators of servicequality and the resources that the library appliesto service. Public service librarians, as well aslibrary managers, place more emphasis on Tra-ditional Countsthe measures by whichlibraries have customarily measured their owneffectiveness than do any other groups.

Library management. Managers have a somewhatdifferent view than public services staff. Man-agers may be somewhat removed from the dailyreality with which public services staff deal allthe time. At the same time, managers necessarilytake a larger view of the organization: While thechildren's services and reference staff vie forresources, the manager may have to decidewhether one should be cut back in favor of theother. And management has the task of repre-senting the library to the political world.Whereas public services staff may interactlargely with library users, management has totalk to decision-makers who may be more skep-tical or less informed about the library's actionsand value.

Boundary-SpanningStakeholdersAs noted above, internal versus external is acontinuum, not a dichotomy. Boundary span-ners are those individuals at the boundarybetween the organization and its environment.Above, we described public services staff, asboundary-spanners because they often act as theinterface between the library and the user. Butas employees, they are clearly more internal tothe organization than the following groups.

Trustees and board members. Many, though not all,public libraries have boards whose role is to rep-resent the interests of the community, to thelibrary, and the library to the community, thatis, they act as boundary-spanners between thelibrary and the community, and the library andlocal officials. As boundary-spanners, they takeon some of the characteristics of people on eachside of the boundary.

In the Public Library Effectiveness Study,trustees were most concerned with Internal Pro-cesses, Community Fit, and Traditional Counts.They are responsible for the library's relationswith its public and for monitoring internal oper-ationsusually either hiring and firing the

71

66 Applying AMPLE

director, or advising the government officialwho does so. And as quasi-members of the orga-nization, they are probably more familiar withthe traditional counts than others would be. Inmany instances the library will have used theTraditional Counts to communicate with itstrustees.

Friends. Many libraries have formal friends ofthe library groups. These are volunteers who areactive in supporting the library politically andfinancially (e.g., fund-raising). They are generallylibrary users, but not average users: rather, theyare "true-believer users." They are, by definition,strongly identified with the library as it is now.

Members of friends groups were most con-cerned with Community Fit, Services, andAccess to Materialsfairly similar to users, ofwhom they are a dedicated subset.

ConclusionThe way to use the preference matrix (see figure21, "Stakeholders' Preferences for Indicators")for talking with library stakeholders is to see itas a general guide to making choices about whatto present. You will want to invent, create,adjust, rearrange, reject, refute. Hold in mindthat your particular situation may not matchmay actually contradictthe national data onwhich AMPLE and the matrix were built. Thewrong way to use the matrix is to consider it anaccurate picture of your particular situation.AMPLE and the matrix are checklists, not edicts.Your stakeholders may vary in their preferencesfrom the national picture. And, of course, youwill identify stakeholders differently from. ormore specifically than the seven in the matrix.

This chapter has considered how the librarycan communicate with its many constituentgroups. We have talked in general about theinformation that constituent groups need and inwhat form, and specifically about who are thepublic library's constituents and what do weknow about their interests and preferences.

The critical point is that the library has toaddress its audience's interests in terms thatthey understand. These interests mayprobablywillvary across constituent groups. AMPLE isa help in designing an assessment program andusing it to communicate with the library's envi-ronment, but in each situation local needs andpreferences will determine what information isused and how. We can offer suggestions and

guidelines. But just as the movement in publiclibraries during the last 20 years or so has beentoward local planning and measurement, so areassessment and communication ultimately func-tions of the local environment.

ReferencesChase, Gordon, and Elizabeth C. Reveal. 1983.

How to Manage in the Public Secur. Reading,Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

Colorado State Library and Adult EducationOffice. 1991. "Salaries of Many Public LibraryDirectors in Western States Fail to Keep Pacewith Inflation." Fast Facts ED3 /110.10 /no. 49(August 14).

Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation. 1991."Five-Year Plan Brochure." Philadelphia: FreeLibrary of Philadelphia.

Hasenfeld, Yehskel. 1983. Human Service Organi-zations. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.


MacRae, Duncan, Jr. 1985. Policy Indicators: Linksbetween Social Science and Public Debate.Chapel Hill: University of North CarolinaPress.

McAuley, J. V. 1991. "Clubs." Egg (December/January): 57-64.

Mills, Peter K. 1986. Managing Service Industries:Organizational Practices in a PostindustrialEconomy. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger.

Mintzberg, Henry. 1989. Mintzberg on Manage-ment: Inside Our Strange World of Organiza-tions. New York: Free Press.

"Peer Institution Data for Auraria Library,1990." 1991. Denver: Colorado State Libraryand Adult Education Office (unpublishedmanuscript).

Pfeffer, Jeffrey, and Gerald R. Salancik. 1978. TheExternal Control of Organizations. New York:Harper and Row.

Tufte, Edward R. 1990. Envisioning Information.New York: Graphics Press.

Van House, Nancy A., and Thomas Childers1991. "Prospects for Public Library Evalua-tion." Public Libraries 30 (September/Octo-ber): 274-78.


Wurman, Richard Saul. 1989. Information Anxiety:What to Do When Information Doesn't Tell YouWhat You Need to Know. New York: Bantam.

72

And, in Sum . . .

Wherein the major points made in the preceding arerecapped and the implications for the library futureare drawn.

The mission of this book has been to (1)define effectiveness for the public library, and(2) provide guidelines for assessing the library'seffectiveness and communicating it to thelibrary's stakeholders.

Several themes have surfaced. First is that thetask of the library manager vis-à-vis effective-ness is threefold: to manage an effective organi-zation; to assess the library's effectiveness, with-out which the manager cannot judge success atthe first task; and, finally, to communicate thelibrary's effectiveness to the larger environment.This book emphasizes the last two, assessing andcommunicating the library's effectiveness. As atax-supported organization, the library relies forits support on people who are not necessarilyconsumers of its services. The holders of thepurse strings have to be informed of what goodthe library is accomplishing with the resourcesthat they give it.

A second theme is that the decision-makingprocess surrounding the library is political, withmany players in various and shifting roles. Thelibrary has to identify them, address their inter-ests, and communicate to them on their terms.

The third theme is that effectiveness is a bigterritory with many possible ways to map it, allof which are valid, all of which may be appliedto the library at some time or another.

Effectiveness DefinedChapter 1 begins by asking a basic question:"What is organizational effectiveness?" anddefines it broadly as "goodness," the degree to

8which success has been achieved, the quality ofan organization's performance.

Effectiveness can be assessed at many lev-elsthe individual, the unit, or the organization.The emphasis in this book has been on organiza-tional-level assessment, although the same con-cepts and methods can be and are used for unitswithin the organization. Current methods ofpersonnel evaluation, in addition, follow a simi-lar approach in defining criteria, collecting infor-mation, and comparing the evidence onemployee performance with expectations.

Libraries' growing concern with effectivenesscomes, in part, because they are caught in asqueeze of rising costs and expectations andincreasing competition for public funds. Thebasic issue is scarcity: there has never been andnever will be enough funding for what thelibrary can and should do. Libraries are caughtin a continuing spiral of trying to do more withless. Society feels an increasingly urgent concernabout getting the maximum benefit from itsoverstretched tax dollars. Taxpayers and gov-ernment officials want to know the yield ontheir public investment. They want to know thatthe funds have been used wisely and that theprograms they support are of value. As socialproblems intensify, people grow suspicious ofestablished approaches. They doubt our abilityto educate troubled youths, to halt the spread ofdrugs and crime, to fix our streets. They ques-tion not just the efficiency, but the efficacy, ofpublic programs: Do the professionals reallyknow what they are doing?

The management literature offers four mainapproaches to effectiveness. The goal modeldefines effectiveness in terms of the organiza-tion's achievement of specific ends. The processmodel is concerned with internal processes and

63 67

68 And, in Sum ...

organizational health. The systems resource modelemphasizes the organization's need to secureresources from its environment. And the multipleconstituencies model defines effectiveness as thedegree to which the needs and expectations ofthe organization's constituent groups are met.

These models are not mutually exclusive, andall four surface in this book at various times. Thelibrary management tools developed by thePublic Library AssociationOutput Measures forPublic Libraries (Van House and others 1987) andPlanning and Role Setting for Public Libraries(McClure and others 1987)have taken a pri-marily goals-oriented approach, so that is theone probably the most familiar to most publiclibrarians. But effectiveness has all these manyfaces. No single definition or approach is themost valid; in listening to constituents, thelibrary manager may hear them all.

EvaluationChapter 2 looks at the process of evaluation andits relationship to effectiveness. Evaluation isjudgment, the comparison of organizational per-formance against expectations and standards.Evidence of the organization's performanceobjective and subjective, data, anecdotes, andimpressionsprovides the raw material forevaluation, but is not in itself evaluative.

Chapter 2 also defined some basic concepts.A dimension of effectiveness is a broad, underly-ing aspect of an organization's performance thatis monitored in assessing effectiveness. Adimension is made up, in turn, of more specificitems, or indicators. A dimension is more abstractand conceptual (for example, community fit), anindicator more concrete (for example, commu-nity awareness of library service offerings). Anindicator is then operationalized by a measure(for example, proportion of respondents to asurvey who are aware that the library lendsvideotapes). Each dimension may have multipleindicators, and each indicator may be opera-tionalized in a variety of measures.

Ultimately, we want to know what causeseffectivenesswhat organizational actions work,what environmental characteristics have to betaken into account, and so forth. But to investi-gate this question, we have to determine how wewill know success when we see it. That is, wefirst need to define and operationalize the dimen-sions, indicators, and measures of effectiveness.

The general systems model links inputs to

processes to outputs to outcomes. In viewing anorganization, we would like to have data aboutall of them, but inputs and processes are gener-ally much easier to observe than outputs andoutcomes. Orr (1973) shows how we assumethat more library inputs will result in more andbetter outputs (services) and, ultimately, betteroutcomes (beneficial effects)for example, weassume that more programs for youth-at-risk inbranches in neighborhoods with a large numberof such young people will bring them into thelibrary and help them stay in school.

In assessing the library, observers apply theirown criteria and operate from their own modelsof cause and effect concerning library servicesand community outcomes. For example, the citycouncil member whose greatest concern is help-ing youth-at-risk may be most interested in thenumber of youth using the library because sheassumes that library use will help them stay inschool and, in turn, get gainful employment.

Existing measures of library services tend tobe heavy on inputs and processes because theyare readily observable and quantifiable. Al-though they are really only the means to achievethe ends (that is, outputs and outcomes), we usethem as proxies for the ends.

Measurement data are not the only, or neces-sarily the best, way to evaluate organizationalperformance. Anecdotes are persuasive andmemorable. Stories can illustrate and bringimmediacy to data.

Management ToolsChapter 3 shows how several major manage-ment tools fit into effectiveness, its assessment,and its presentation. Planning, measurement,budgeting, and personnel appraisal can all beunderstood as efforts toward assessing effective-ness and controlling action. Since the 1970s, thepublic library profession has been developingapproaches to planning and measurement thatcan be used to assess effectiveness, as it is locallydefined. Centrally defined standards of perfor-mance gave way to efforts to identify a singledefinition or measure of goodness which, inturn, gave way to a localization of planning andevaluation. Through such tools as Planning andRole Setting for Public Libraries (McClure and oth-ers 1987) and Output Measures for Public Libraries(Van House and others 1987), the Public LibraryAssociation has helped local libraries defineeffectiveness and assess it.

74

And, in Sum . . . 69

These works have their limits. They assume arational, monolithic approach to decision-mak-ing that doesn't accurately reflect the library'scomplex political reality. However, they haveimproved the quality of data for decision-mak-ing in public libraries. They have provided notonly a process, but an orientation toward defin-ing the ends to be achieved and using quantita-tive data to assess progress.

Budgeting is also an essential way of repre-senting an organization's effectiveness. Increas-ingly complex budgeting systems have emergedfrom the desire for greater accountability in thepublic sector. Government officials and the pub-lic want to know what they are getting for theirmoney, in order to make difficult decisionsabout resource allocation. Budgeting systemsare intended to show the relationship amonginputs, processes, outputs, and outcomes.

Individual performance appraisal in manyways parallels organization-level performanceappraisal. The library fulfills its mission, ulti-mately, through the people who work in it. Justas the organization is held accountable for whatit accomplishes, so are the individuals within it.Newer appraisal methods link individual per-formance to organizational performance.

The Public Library ItselfChapter 4 looks at several key characteristics ofthe public library. The first is that it is publiclyfunded. As a result, its income is determined bythe political process, rather than coming fromthe sale of its services, so its income is separatedfrom its outputs. The people making decisionsabout the library are not necessarily the oneswho benefit. The library's budget is just one of aseries of decisions negotiated by local govern-ment officials, interest groups, and other politi-cal players. As a result, the library may some-times be seen as a bit player in a much largerdrama. And the public library is not a majorpolitical player. It generally does not have eitherpowerful foes or champions.

It may be difficult for the political decision-makers to decide how much to spend on thelibrary. There is no common metric by which toassess the value of its outputs compared to itscosts. The library's value to the larger commu-nity may not be as self-evident as that of thepublic services with which it competesthepolice department, the fire department, socialwelfare agencies, and so forth.

The second characteristic is that the library isa service organization. Servicesas opposed togoodsare often intangible and transitory, anddifficult to observe and assess. Service is often aresult of a partnership between the client andthe service provider, each of whom plays a rolein determining the outcome. The relationshipbetween staff actions and client outcomes isoften uncertain, that is, the best course of actionis not always clear. And we can't really measurewhat interests us most: outcomes. The finaleffects of library use often occur later, outside ofthe library. Did the information obtained fromthe library help the client?

A third characteristic is that much library useis self-service. The library provides facilities,materials, and staff. Clients decide on their ownhow to use them, how far to go, and whetherand when to ask for help. When we assesslibrary effectiveness, then, we are assessing theinteraction of the library and the client.Although the library has a responsibility to facil-itate user success, the user plays a critical role indetermining the purposes for which the librarywill be used and the result of his or her use ofthe library.

A Model of PublicLibrary EffectivenessChapter 5 presents the major results of the Pub-lic Library Effectiveness Study. It was an empiri-cal study of how public library constituentsview public library effectiveness. We were notconcerned with how effective they judged theirlibraries to be, but rather with the criteria theyused in making those effectiveness judgments.Seven major public library constituent groupswere asked to rate the importance of 61 indica-tors of public library effectiveness in evaluatingthe library. From their responses, rankings of theindicators for each of the seven groups weredeveloped, and the indicators were groupedinto eight broader dimensions of public libraryeffectiveness. The dimensions can be used todefine the larger is 2s to be addressed inassessing public library effectiveness and tochoose among the indicators and their measures.

Chapter 6 presents "A Model of PublicLibrary Effectiveness" (AMPLE), derived fromthe findings of the Public Library EffectivenessStudy. AMPLE is a listing and classification of in-dicators and measures, grouped by dimensions,

75

70 And, in Sum .

that may be used to review the comprehen-siveness of a library's program of assessment, todevelop a program of assessment, and todevelop a strategy for communicating with keystakeholders. AMPLE is presented in both alonger and a shorter version, for the more andthe less ambitious readers. It is not intended tobe a ready-made assessment program, becauseeach library must consider its own priorities andthose of its community; but it does assist thelibrary in improving its own assessment, deci-sion-making, and communication with stake-holders.

AMPLE differs from Output Measures for Pub-lic Libraries (Van House and others 1987) in thatthe latter presented a very limited number ofwidely applicable measures of output. OMPLwas designed to provide detailed hand-holdingfor a set of measures considered to be almostuniversally applicable to public libraries.AMPLE is designed to help in creating a morecomprehensive and customized system ofassessment. AMPLE may well be, for mostlibraries, the next step after OMPL.

Using AMPLE withStakeholders

AMPLE = Assess and communicate library effec-tiveness.

To communicate with the many groups whoassess the library and control its resources, orwho influence those who do, the library has toidentify the stakeholders, determine which indi-cators and measures will be most useful in com-municating with them, and design a communi-cation strategy.

Chapter 7 discusses some general principlesfor communicating with stakeholders, identifiesthe public library's major stakeholder groups,and identifies, from the Public Library Effective-ness Study and other sources, those groups'likely interests in the public library.

The final choice of indicators is largely politi-cal. Generally, political decision-makers aremost concerned about how the service or pro-gram affects their constituents' intereststhelarger problems of society and their particularconcernsand who is to benefit, what alliancesare to be built, and the health of the politicalprocess. Library management has to decide whothe audience is and what it wants to know.

The information that the library uses todescribe itself to the larger world tells peoplewhat and who the library thinks is important,what the library has done and has tried to do,and for whom. Therefore, the library must buildits asessment program to meet the agendas of itsstakeholders. This does not mean that the librarydoesn't have its own agenda. Indeed, the libraryis given unusual latitude in setting its ownagenda because most members of the largercommunity have a fairly simplistic idea of whatthe library should do and relatively low expecta-tions for its performance.

The library must also argue for its own legiti-macythat it is using public funds wisely, forworthwhile programs and efficient operations.Because so many of its observers have a ratherlimited concept of the library, library manage-ment can, to a large degree, control their expec-tations, set their criteria, and influence theirevaluation by the way that it presents itself.

In communicating about the library withexternal stakeholders, in particular, you shouldremember that people integrate new informa-tion with what they already know. Informationneeds to be presented in language they under-stand, and put into a familiar context. For exam-ple, comparisons give data a context, as whenone neighborhood is compared with another.Local government, for instance, is especiallyconcerned with spatial data and neighborhoodcomparisons.

Graphics can be particularly powerful forconveying information quickly and succinctlywhen used well. Stories and anecdotes are alsopowerful. They are easily remembered and canenliven data in ways that connect with the hear-ers' own experiences (for example, losing theequivalent cost of three fire trucks in disappear-ing library materials).

From the Public Library Effectiveness Studysurvey and interviews, and other discussionabout public sector decision-making, we caninfer some things about what is most likely tocapture the interest of various stakeholdergroups. However, each library has to considerits own community and the interests and needsof its particular stakeholders.

One of the more surprising findings is thatthe set of indicators that libraries have mostcommonly used (the Traditional Counts dimen-sion) is of interest primarily to internal (librarianand trustee) stakeholders, but is not particularlyinteresting to anyone else. Externals are muchmore interested in the library's relationships

S 6

And, in Sum . .. 71

with its community and its overall program ofservices. Externals also have a strong interest inthe library's management. This is probably amanifestation of an overarching concern aboutthe efficiency of government operations. Whatthis means is that the library has to be careful tospeak to its constituents about what it is doingand how, the results of its actions, and its inter-nal operations.

Final ThoughtsThe purpose of this book has been to help librar-ians become more effective managers and politi-cians. The two are indivisible. Running an effi-cient and effective operation is a necessary, butnot a sufficient, condition for organizationalhealth. The resources needed to keep the librarygoingfunding, staff energy, users, and com-munity supportdepend not only on the librarybeing good, but on others knowing that it isgood.

The point is that a varied audience, with dis-parate understandings of the library, plays acritical role in determining the library's survival.The public library manager has to determinewho audience members are and how to talk tothem about the library. They have to see howthe library is important to their interests. It is notenough today, if it ever was, to present thelibrary in terms of how well it does whatlibraries are supposed to do. We cannot assumethat people understand and value the publiclibrary simply on its own terms. The traditional

community support for the public library as agood thing to have, regardless of who used it orfor what, is giving way to the reality of over-whelming social problems, rising costs, over-stressed tax revenues, and government deficits.In this kind of a climate, the public librarian hasto be an astute manager and politician.

The managers of the public library have to beat least as critical and skeptical of the library astheir audiences are. They have to be the first, notthe last, to identify outmoded services and oper-ations and to know when it is time to redirectthe library. Those who believe that the publiclibrary is a valuable institution and have dedi-cated their careers to it have to be the most cre-ative in adapting the library to the society that itserves and on which it depends, and in explain-ing the library to those who matter.

ReferencesMcClure, Charles R., Amy Owen, Douglas L.

Zweizig, Mary Jo Lynch, and Nancy A. VanHouse. 1987. Planning and Role Setting for Pub-lic Libraries. Chicago: American Library Asso-ciation.

Orr, Richarc; H. 1973. "Measuring the Goodnessof Library Services: A General Framework forConsidering Quantitative Measures." Journalof Documentation 29, no. 3: 315-32.


7 7

AppendicesA. The AMPLE Worksheet

B. Checklist of Library Services

78

A. The AMPLE WorksheetThe complete AMPLE model is repeated in thissection for your use as a planning tool if desired.To use the "short" AMPLE, use only the mea-sures highlighted with a gray background.

In this format, columns indicating other sourcesof measures have been eliminated. The columns

indicating ease of use have been retained. Twonarrow blank columns have been added at rightfor any use you may designate. Finally, the right-most "Comments" column is provided for youradditional notes in planning an assessment proj-ect or any additional notations.

I IEIDI D+11 Comments


1.1 USES AND USERSTotal uses of all services per

annum

Current registration per capita

Total users per annum percapita

x

x

x

1.2 VISITS TO LIBRARY

Annual visits (turnstile count)

Frequency of visits per visitor

Time spent in building

Average number of servicesused during visits

x x

1.3 CIRCULATIONNumber of materials circulated

per annum

... and per capita

Number of materials circulatedper person per visit

Types of materials borrowedper annum

Total materials used

x

x

x

x

x

79 75

76 The AMPLE Worksheet

I E+ I E ID I D+ I I

Comments

1.4 TOTAL EXPENDITURESTotal annual expenditure

Annual capital expenditure

Annual operating expenditure

Annual income by source

x

x

x

x

1.5 REFERENCE VOLUMENumber of reference

transactions per annumx

Patterns of reference usage x x

1.6 VARIETY OF USERSUsers (grouped by demo-

graphic characteristics)

as a percentage of total users

as a percent of the popula-tion in each group

x

x

x

1.7 MATERIALS TURNOVER

Turnover rate

Turnover rate by type ofmaterial

x

x

1.8 MATERIALS EXPENDITUREMaterials expenditure per

annum

... and + total operatingexpenditures

Materials expenditure bycategory + total operatingexpenditures

x

x

x

1.9 PROGRAM ATTENDANCEProgram attendance per annum

(audience size)

Attendance at out-of-libraryprograms

x

80

The AMPLE Worksheet 77

I E+ I EID I D. II I I

Comments

1.10 IN-LIBRARY USE

In-Library use of mater k4s

... and as a % of circulation

x

x

1.11 MATERIALS OWNED Includes book, serial, audio, visual, microform, and computer formatsItems held

Items by type, as a % of totalitems

x x

1.12 STAFF SIZE

Staff size

Professional staff size per capita

Number of staff + circulation

Number of public service staff +users per annum

Public service staff per houropen

x

x

1.13 REFERENCE FILL RATE

Reference fill rateCorrect answers to reference

questions

Scope and depth of referenceresources

x

xx

1.14 STAFF EXPENDITURES

Expenditure for personnel

. .. and as % of totalexpenditures

x

x

1.15 EQUIPMENT USAGE

Number of pieces ofequipment available, by type

Number of equipment uses. .. and per annum

Percentage of time equipmentis in use

x

X

X

X

81


I E+ D D4 11

1.16 USE OF LIBRARY COMPARED TO

OTHER SERVICES/EVENTS

Library uses per annumcompared to other product orservice use

x

Comments


2.1 MANAGERIAL COMPETENCEManagerial competence x

2.2 STAFF MORALEStaff morale x x

2.3 STAFF QUALITYOverall staff quality

Total professionals + total staff

x

x

2.4 STAFF HELPFULNESSHelpful, courteous staff,

concerned about client

Level of staff assistance to users

x

x

x

x

2.5 SUPPORT OF INTELLECTUAL

FREEDOM

Library endorsement ofintellectual freedomstatements

Use of materials regardless ofcontent, format, or treatment,by any user

x

x

82


F. Comments

2.6 CONTRIBUTION OF LAYOUT,

CATALOG, AND SIGNAGE TO SELF-

USE (Indicator #63)"Transparency" of building

layoutx x

Utility of catalog x x

Utility of internal signage x x

2.7 GOAT ACHIEVEMENT

Extent to which formal libraryobjectives are achieved

x

2.8 EFFICIENCY OF LIBRARY

OPERATIONS

Operating expenditures percapita

Operating expenditures +number of total client usesper annum

Number of materials processed +dollars expended onmaterials processing

Operating expenditures +library activity index orworkload level

x

x

2.9 WRITTEN POLICIES

Existence of written policies x

2.10 SAFETY OF USERS

Security of users of building,inside and outside

x


3.1 COMMUL 'TY AWARENESS OF

OFFERINGS

Community awareness oflibrary services

x

83


IEIDI D-I1 I IComments

3.2 USERS' EVALUATIONUser evaluation of service

received

. . . immediately uponreceiving the service

. . . after using the information/knowledge

3.3 CONTRIBUTION TO COMMUNITY

WELL-BEING

Contribution of library tocommunity well-being

Contribution of library toindividual well-being

. . . and to subgroups (e.g.,business, students, etc.)

Contribution to education ofcommunity

Return on investment

x x

3.4 SERVICES SUITED TO THE

COMMUNITY

Suitedness of services tocommunity

Extent to which target popu-lations are reached

x

x

x

x

3.5 PUBLIC OPINIONPublic opinion of library x

3.6 FLEXIBILITY OF LIBRARY

MANAGEMENTAdaptability of the organiza-

tion and of management

Adoption of innovation, bothnumber and speed

x

x

84


I E+ I E ID I

D+ II I IComments

3.7 STAFF SUITED TO THE COMMUNITY

Demographics of staffcompared with demographicsof population

Ability of staff to servecommunity

x

x

3.8 STAFF CONTACT WITH USERS

Number of contacts betweenusers and service staff

Proportion of hours open whenstaff is available at servicepoints

x

x

3.9 PUBLIC RELATIONS

Number of public relationsevents per annum

Qualified staff member(s)assigned to public relations

Amount of staff time spent onpublic relations

x

x

x

3.10 RELATIONS WITH COMMUNITY

AGENCIES

Number of formal groupsserved per annum

Number of non-service inter-actions with other agencies'service points

x

x

3.11 CommuNrrY ANALYSISUtilization of community

studies in library decisionsx x


4.1 COOPERATION WITH OTHERLIBRARIES

Cooperative activities withother libraries, including statelibrary agency

Membership in a formal librarycooperative

85


E+ I E D Dr III

Comments

4.2 SPEED OP SERVICETurnaround hours for service

requests

Turnaround days for reserves,interlibrary and intrasystemborrowings

User satisfaction with turn-around time

x

x

x

4.3 INFORMATION ABOUT OTHER

COLLECTIONS

Subscriptions to state-wide,regional, or national holdingsdatabases, manual orelectronic

x

4.4 INTERLIBRARY LOANNumber of interlibrary (i.e.,

intersystem) borrowingsper annum

Interlibrary borrowings fill rate

x

x

4.5 MATERIALS AVAILABILITYFill rates by types of search

(subject, author, title,browsing, homework)

Probability of materialsownership

Availability of materials owned

Overall user success rate

x

4.6 EXTENT SERVICES ARE FREEVariety of services, materials,

and facilities available freeof charge

x

86


E+ ED I 0+ 11

Comments


5.1 CONVENIENCE OF BUILDING

LOCATION

Convenience of site x x

5.2 BUILDING EASY TO IDENTIFYBuilding clearly identifiable

from the streetx

5.3 PARKING!slumber of parking spaces

Availability of parking spaces

x x

x

5.4 BUILDING SUTTABILTTY

Square footage per capita

Seating capacity per capita

Suitability of furniture andequipment

Intensity of use of facilities

x

x

x

x

5.5 BUILDING APPEALAppeal of library interior x x

. .. and of library exterior x x


6.1 POLITICAL AND FISCAL VIABILITY

OF THE LIBRARY (Indicator #62)Ratio of actual revenue to

potential library revenue

Size of budget compared tosimilar libraries

Stability of funding

Political success of the library x

x

87


I IEIDI D+ II I I

Comments

6.2 BOARD AcrtvENEssActiveness of library board

Orientation of new boardmembers

Written bylaws for board,reviewed regularly

6.3 VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS(Gifts, Money, Time)Dollar value of gifts of money,

materials, equipment

Hours of volunteer time perannum

Dollars raised through effortof volunteers

Activeness of Friends or othervolunteers in the library'spolitical arena

x

6.4 LIBRARY PRODUCTS (Booklists,Guides, etc.)Number of library productions,

publications, and recordingsdistributed per annum percapita

x

6.5 ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF BUILDING

Energy efficiency

Participation in a recyclingprogram

x

x

6.6 CONTINUING EDUCATIONFOR STAFF

Number of hours of continuingeducation attended + staffmember

Number of continuing educa-tion events attended perstaff member

Percentage of staff participatingin continuing education

88


Et I E IDI ID+ II I IComments

6.7 PLANNING AND EVALUATION

Long-range, written plan

Long-term assessment of spaceneeds

Annual review and adjustmentof plan

Evaluation of library activitiesand programs

6.8 PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN LIBRARYDECISIONS

Defined mechanism for com-munity input to design anddevelopment of services andfacilities

Complaints procedure for users

Public access to board meet-ings and board documents

x

x

x


7.1 RANGE OF MATERIALS

Variety of formats of materials

Number of items in each format

Breadth of subjects in library'scollections

Depth of holdings in library'scollections

x

x

7.2 RANGE OP SERVICES

Number of services offered

Extent to which library offersall of its services when open

Innovative program of services

x

x

x

7.3 CONVENIENCE OF HOURSNumber of hours open per

week

Range of hours open

x

x(continued)


EIDI D+ II Comments

7.3 (continued)Convenience to users of hours

open

Users, by hour

x

x

7.4 MATERIAL QUALITYCollection quality x

7.5 NEWNESS OF MATERIALSMedian publication date

New volumes per annum

... and per capita

Titles added as a % of totaltitles, per annum

Speed of acquisitions

x

X

x

x

x


8.1 HANDICAPPED ACCESSHandicapped accessibility x x

8.2 SPECIAL GROUP SERVICESServices to populations with

special needsx x

90

B. Checklist of Library Services

Access to online databasesAdult programsAssistance in borrowing materials from other librariesAudio cassettes to circulateBest-sellers, popular materialsBookmobile service

Books by mailChildren's programsCommunity bulletin boardsEquipment to use with films, records, tapesFilms to circulateHelp with homeworkHelp with reading skills

Help with selecting library materials (books, films, tapes, video tapes, etc.)In-depth research materialsMagazinesMeeting roomsMicrocomputers for public useNewspapersPhonograph records to circulatePhotocopiersRecreational reading

Reference/information

Short answers to specific questions

Assistance in locating material on a subjectAssistance in developing search strategy

Individual assistance in using the library or its materials, on demandGroup or individual instruction in library or materials useBibliographic verification of materialsPreparation of subject bibliographiesReferral to outside persons and organizations

Senior citizens' programsStudy/quiet spaceTeenagers' programsVideo cassettes to circulate

9187

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IndexNote: Names of indicators are printed in boldface.

Access, Handicapped, 31, 52, 62Access to Materials (dimension of effectiveness), 30,

47-48, 62ALD. See American Library Directory (ALD)American Library Directory (ALD), 37, 42AMPLE (A Model of Public Library Effectiveness), 2,

33-53, 69-70; applying, 54-66Anecdotes. See StoriesAssessment, 1Assessment program, 33-53Attendance, Program, 30, 42, 61Availability of Materials, 30, 48, 60, 62

BARS. See Behaviorally anchored rating scaleBehaviorally anchored rating scale, 21-22Board Activeness, 30, 49, 62Board members, 65-66Booklists and guides. See Library ProductsBoundary Spanning (dimension of effectiveness), 30,

49-50, 62Branch libraries, 2Budgeting, 1921, 69; line-item, 20; memo-type or lump

sum, 19; performance, 20; program, 20Building Appeal, 30, 49, 62Building Easy to Identify, 30, 48, 62Building, Energy Efficiency of, 31, 50, 62Building Location, Convenience of, 30, 48, 60, 62Building Suitability, 30, 48-49, 62

Catalog, Contribution to Self-Use of, 44Census, 39Circulation, 30, 41, 61Collections. See Materials OwnedCommunications with stakeholders, 59-66Community Agencies, Relations with, 30, 46-47, 62Community Analysis, 30, 47, 62Community Awareness of Offerings, 30, 45, 60,

61

Community Fit (dimension of effectiveness), 30,45-47, 61-62

.

Community improvement associations, 64Community leaders, 64Community, Services Suited to. 30, 46, 60, 61Community, Staff Suitability to, 30, 46, 61Community Well-Being, Contribution of, 30, 45, 61Constituent groups. See StakeholdersContinuing Education for Staff, 31, 50, 62Contribution of Layout, Catalog and Signage to

Self-Use, 44Contribution to Community Well-Being, 30, 45, 61Convenience of Hours, 31, 51, 60, 62Cooperation with Other Libraries, 30, 47, 62Custon Ler-driven budgeting, 21

Decision-making in public sector, 25Decisions, Public Involvement in, 31, 50, 62Determinants, 11Dimensions of effectiveness, 10, 29, 33-34, 67

Economy and value, 6Effectiveness, 1, 58, 15-23, 67; difficulties in measur-

ing, 24-27; and evaluation, 9-14; models of, 78Efficiency of Library Operations, 30, 44, 60, 61Efficiency vs. effectiveness, 5-6Energy Efficiency of Building, 31, 50, 62Environment, 12Equipment Usage, 30, 43, 61Evaluation, 9-10Evaluation by Users, 30, 45, 61Evaluation program, 1, 67Evidence, 9-10Expenditure, Materials, 30, 42, 61Expenditures for Staff, 30, 43, 61Expenditures, Total, 30, 41, 61Extent Services Are Free, 30, 48, 62

Federal-State Cooperative System for Public LibraryData (FSCS), 18, 37

Feedback, 12, 13Fiscal Viability of the Library, 30, 49, 62Flexibility of Library Management, 30, 46, 61Free Services, Extent of, 30, 48, 62Friends groups, 25, 66

94 91

92 index

FSCS. See Federal-State Cooperative System for PublicLibrary Data (FSCS)

General systems model, 12-14, 67Goal Achievement, 30, 44, 61Goal model, 7, 31, 67Goals-based planning, 19Goodness, 58, 10, 15-23, 55Grail of Library Goodness, 16Graphics, 56-57, 70

Handicapped Access, 31, 52, 62Helpfulness of Staff, 30, 44.60, 61Hours, Convenience of, 31, 51, 60, 62

Idiosyncratic measures, 9, 35In-library Use, 30, 42, 61Indicators of effectiveness, 10, 28, 67Information about Other Collections, 30, 47, 62Inputs, 12,13Inspection, 38, 39-40Intellectual Freedom, Support of, 30, 44, 61Inter-Library Loan, 30, 47.62Interest groups, 25Internal Processes (dimension of effectiveness), 30,

43-45, 61

Layout, Catalog and Signage, Contribution of toSelf-Use, 44

Legislators, 63Legitimacy, 55Library board members, 65-66Library Management, Flexibility of, 30, 46, 61Library Products, 30, 50, 62Line item budgeting, 20Localization movement, 15-16Long-range planning, 18-19

Management by Objectives, 21Management staff, 65Management tools, 15-23Managerial Competence, 30, 43, 61, 63Materials Availability, 30, 48, 60, 62Materials Expenditure, 30, 42, 61Materials, Newness of, 31, 52, 62Materials Owned, 30, 42, 61Materials Quality, 31, 51-52, 60, 62Materials, Range of, 31, 51, 60, 62Materials Turnover, 30, 42, 61MBO. See Management by ObjectivesMeasurement, 16; difficulty of, 37-38Measures, 10-11, 67; in AMPLE, 35, 41-52. See also

Output measuresMeasures and the systems model, 16-17Measures of output, 16-18Measuring vs. evaluating, 9-10Mission-driven budgeting, 20-21Model of Public Library Effectiveness, A. See AMPLEModels of effectiveness, 31, 67-68

Morale of Staff, 30, 43, 61Multiple constituencies model, 7, 31, 67Museums, 64

Neighborhood associations, 64Newness of Materials, 31, 52, 62Newspapers, 64

Officials, elected and appointed, 63OMC. See Output Measures for Public Library Service to

ChildrenOMPL. See Output Measures for Public LibrariesOperationalizing indicators, 35Other Collections, Information about, 30, 47, 62Other Libraries, Cooperation with, 30, 47, 62Outcome budgeting, 21Outcomes, 12, 13, 26Output budgeting, 21Output measures, 16-18Output Measures for Public Libraries (OMPL), 2, 17, 37,

68, 70Output Measures for Public Library Service to Children

(OMC), 17, 37Outputs, 12, 13

Parking, 30, 48, 62Performance appraisal, 21-22, 26, 69Performance budgeting, 20Performance Measures for Public Libraries, 16Physical Facilities (dimension of effectiveness), 30,

48 49, 62Planning and Evaluation, 31, 50, 62Planning and measurement, 15-16Planning and Role Setting for Public Libraries (PRSPL),

18-19, 67Planning Process for Public Libraries, 18-19Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System

(PPBS), 20Planning, strategic, 18-19PLDS. See Public Library Data Service (PLDS)Policies, Written, 30, 44, 61Political and Fiscal Viability of the Library, 30, 49,

62; in Short AMPLE, 30Political decision-makers, 70Political questions, 54Power relationships, 64PPBS. See Planning, Programming, and Budgeting

System (PPBS)Process model, 7, 31, 67Processes, 12, 13Program Attendance, 30, 42, 61Program budgeting, 20PRSPL. See Planning and Role Setting for Public Libraries

(PRSPL)Public, general, 63-64Public Involvement in Library Decisions, 31, 50, 62Public Library Data Service (PLDS), 17, 42Public Library Data Service Statistical Report (PLDS), 37Public Library Effectiveness Study, 2, 12, 28-32, 35, 60

95

Index 93

Public Opinion, 30, 46, 61Public Relations, 30, 46, 61Public sector, 6, 24Public services staff, 65

Quality, 12Quality of Materials, 31, 51-52, 60, 62Quality of Staff, 30, 43, 60, 61Quantitative evidence, 9

Range of Materials, 31, 51, 60, 62Range of Services, 31, 51, 60, 62Reference Fill Rate, 30, 43, 61Reference Volume, 30, 41, 61Relations with Community Agencies, 30, 46-47, 62Revenues, 24

Safety of Users, 30, 45, 61Sampling, 39School districts, 64Self rvice, 26-27Service consumption, 11-12Service Offerings (dimension of effectiveness), 30,

51-52, 62Service organizations, libraries as, 25-26Service, Speed of, 30, 47, 62Service to Special Groups (dimension of effective-

ness), 30-31, 52, 62Services Range of, 31, 51, 60, 62Services, Special Group, 31, 52, 62Services Suited to the Community, 30, 46, 60, 61Short AMPLE, 36Signage, Contribution to Self-Use of, 44Size of Staff, 30, 42, 61Special Group Services, 31, 52, 62Speed of Service, 30, 47, 62Staff: as stakeholders, 65Staff Contact with Users, 30, 46, 62Staff, Continuing Education of, 31, 50, 62Staff Expenditures, 30, 43, 61Staff Helpfulness, 30, 44, 60, 61Staff Morale, 30, 43, 61

96

Staff Quality, 30, 43, 60, 61Staff Size, 30, 42, 61Staff Suitability to Community, 30, 46, 61Stakeholders, 7, 8, 33; boundary-spanning, 65-66;

communicating with, 34, 54-66; differences inviews, 28-29; external, 60-63; internal, 64-65;using AMPLE with, 70

Statistical data, 38-39Stories, 12, 56, 57-58, 70Strategic planning, 18-19Success, 16Support of Intellectual Freedom, 30, 44, 61Surveys, 9, 38, 40Systems resource model, 7, 31, 67

Tally, 38, 39Technology, indeterminant, 26Total Expenditures, 30, 41, 61Traditional counts (dimension of effectiveness), 29-30,

41-43, 70Trustees, 65-66Turnover of Materials, 30, 42, 61

Use, In-library, 30, 42, 61Use of Library Compared to Other ServiceslEvents,

30, 43, 61Users of library, 64Users, Safety of, 30, 45, 61Users, Staff Contact with, 30, 46, 62Users, Variety of, 30, 42, 61Uses and Users, 30, 41, 61

Value, 12Variety of Users, 30, 42, 61Visits to Library, 30, 41, 61Voluntary Contributions, 30, 50, 62

Written Policies, 30, 44, 61

ZBB. See Zero-based budgetingZero-based budgeting, 20

Comments?

Now you tell us a story . . about how you've been successful in assessing and communicating yourlibrary's effectiveness to your stakeholder groups.

Data you've used?

Stories and anecdotes?

Presentation methods?

Etc. . . .

. . . and how have they worked?

We'd love to hear. And if you have something to illustratea report to users, budget presentation,annual reportplease send it!

If you have any suggestion that would help make this book more useful, we'd like to hear that, too.

Send to: Thomas Childers, College of Information Studies, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

97

Documents

DOCUMENT RESUME ED 365 343 AUTHOR Childers, Thomas A.; … · Why Should Effectiveness Concern Us? 6. Approaches to Effectiveness 7 Conclusion 8. 2. Effectiveness and Evaluation 9