Editorial

Citation

Stein, J. (2016), "Editorial", Performance Measurement and Metrics, Vol. 17 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/PMM-07-2016-0029

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Performance Measurement and Metrics, Volume 17, Issue 2.

Dear Colleagues,

While this is just my third editorial as Editor-in-Chief of Performance Measurement and Metrics, it strikes me that this is the second time within a year that I must, with both pleasure (for them) and sadness (for the profession) announce the retirement of another colleague named Stephen from England. The first was Stephen Thornton, long-time Editor of this journal after his retirement from the field of librarianship and his library assessment work. This time, we must say our farewells to Dr Stephen Town, who retired as the Director of Information and University Librarian from the University of York in September 2015. Before this position, he spent 23 years leading the Defense Academy of the UK Library, Cranfield University.

Dr Town has been a driving force internationally in the library assessment movement since the early 1990s, through his significant work in benchmarking, library instruction, and LibQUAL+assessment with the Society of College and University Libraries efforts in library assessment in the UK, and as a thought-leader and major and ongoing contributor of presentations and conference papers at the Northumbria International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries and Information Services, which began in 1995. His contributions to the Library Assessment Conference have been commensurate. Dr Town is an active, contributing Member of the Boards of the Northumbria Conference, the Library Assessment Conference, and serves on the Editorial Board of this journal, Performance Measurement and Metrics.

Because of the depth and breadth of Dr Town’s contributions, this issue of Performance Measurement and Metrics is dedicated to him. Dr Town has an extensive and varied publication record, which you will be able to explore in depth in Dr Sheila Corrall’s bibliographic essay on the influence of Dr Town’s work on the profession, "Seven stories of performativity and advocacy: a review of the published work of Stephen Town", which you will find in this issue. In addition to covering the influence of his publications, Dr Corrall also highlights Dr Town’s role as a change-agent through the innovative tools which he has created or worked with others to create, which have had an influence world-wide. In particular, his heartfelt interest in the value of people, and his value scorecard, deserves to be further tested through use at a wide variety of universities. This work is all in addition to his teaching, mentorship, and generosity to an entire generation of library assessment professionals.

While it is always difficult to lose a significant colleague, we are pleased to be able to dedicate this issue to him and hope that it comes close to meaning as much to him as he and his work have meant to us. We do not often come across colleagues whose influence is so varied and extensive and who gives so generously of himself. Dr Town is one of those and his influence will be felt into the future.