The Quality Library: A Guide to Staff‐driven Improvement, Better Efficiency, and Happier Customers

Citation

Calvert, P. (2009), "The Quality Library: A Guide to Staff‐driven Improvement, Better Efficiency, and Happier Customers", The Electronic Library, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 557-557. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470910966989

The word “quality” is very often misused in the library world for anything the speaker likes to think is better than what went before. We would all benefit if such words were used with greater precision, and that is what has been done here. This book contains several references to Deming and to total quality management in which the organisation is seen as a system that should be designed in an optimal way to deliver excellent service to its customers. All staffs are therefore involved in the processes that deliver service to customers and hence everyone must recognise the need for process improvement. That is what Deming achieved in such spectacular fashion with Japanese industry at a time when its product quality was something of a joke to western eyes.

The central point made by the authors is that library managers can focus on separate processes, improve them, and as a result raise the level of customer service and therefore “quality”.

The authors focus on library processes – there is a long list of processes both large and small in Appendix 2. The familiar functions such as circulation and shelving are present, but the authors have not forgotten the management of reports and meetings, handling the budget, dealing with staff conflict, and providing security. It is a pity there are not more technology‐focussed functions in the list.

In line with Deming there is an emphasis on giving power to staff and making them more responsible for process quality. There is also considerable weight attached to measuring processes as a major means of improving them (Deming was initially a statistician). I do not agree with all the performance measures proposed in this book but the authors have good reasons for suggesting them, and plenty of practical experience to support their proposals.

There are some processes described in considerable detail in the book and it is my guess that there are librarians who will want to read the book for the clarity the authors can bring to thinking about even an apparently simple library function. The book deserves a wide readership and I recommend it to all libraries, great, and small.