Despite technological advances, many basic library activities still lend themselves to analysis and improvement. Richard M. Dougherty provides numerous examples and easy-to-apply tools and techniques to assess what libraries are doing, how they are doing it, and how much time is required to do it. These tools include block diagrams, check sheets, flow process charts, work-flow diagrams, flow charts, through-put analysis, self-administered diary studies, and work sampling. Specific examples from all areas of library operations are presented. Streamling Library Services provides detailed information on how to diagnose problem areas with such tools as Pareto and fishbone charts; use brainstorming; organize a work-flow study; and build and present cost studies. Special emphasis is placed on activities that should occur after the analysis is concluded, including data analysis, reporting study results, and making recommendations to management. Guidelines are provided for managers and staff as they strive to streamline activities. Topics include implementation issues and strategies that must be addressed as new workflows and services are introduced and organizational change issues and strategies for building staff support toward change. Book jacket.

Is it possible to both cut costs and improve public library programming for all ages? Yes, it is; this book demonstrates how. In their roles as community centers, public libraries offer many innovative and appealing programs; but under current budget cuts, library resources are stretched thin. With slashed budgets and limited staff hours, what can libraries do to best serve their publics? This how-to guide provides strategies for streamlining library programming in public libraries while simultaneously maintaining—or even improving—quality delivery. The wide variety of principles and techniques described can be applied on a selective basis to libraries of all sizes. Based upon the author's own extensive experience as well as that of colleagues in other library systems, this book provides readers with a practical, step-by-step approach to maximizing resources and minimizing costs of programming without sacrificing quality, as well as insider tips and examples from the field that will help them to avoid known pitfalls.

Prologue : the power of a lean transformation -- Strategy one. Recognize that service performance is the key to customer retention -- Strategy two. Transform your change-resistant culture -- Strategy three. Understand how delivery service chains drive your library's performance -- Strategy four. Align your performance metrics with your delivery service chains -- Strategy five. Transform your new book delivery service chain -- Strategy six. Transform your customer holds/reserves delivery chain of service -- Strategy seven. Transform your cost control philosophy to a lean service improvement philosophy -- Strategy eight. Transform your overall library service performance metrics -- Strategy nine. Transform your digital research delivery service chain -- Strategy ten. Transform your delivery service chain from a "push" to a "pull" philosophy -- Strategy eleven. Think lean before the concrete is poured -- Afterword : lean continuous improvement -- Appendix : more lean tools.

Libraries are experiencing major changes concerning the role of technical services. Technical services librarians also are being challenged about their relevance and role, sometimes revealed by a lack of understanding of the contribution technical services librarians make to building and curating library and archival collections. The threats are real: relocation from central facilities, the dramatic shift to electronic resources, budgetary constraints, and outsourced processing. As a result, technical services departments are reinventing themselves to respond to these and similar challenges while embracing innovative methods and opportunities to advance librarianship in the twenty-first century. Library Technical Services provides case studies that highlight difficult realities, yet embrace exciting opportunities, such as space reclamation, evolving vendor partnerships, metadata, retraining and managing personnel, special collections, and distance education. Written for catalog and metadata librarians and managers of technical services units, this book will inspire and provide practical advice and examples for solving issues many libraries are facing today.

In the years since John Huber’s trailblazing Lean Library Management was published, budget pressures on libraries have only increased. Yet libraries who have adopted his strategies have turned conventional management thinking—that if budgets are reduced, customer service suffers—on its head. These libraries have proven that by streamlining and improving customer services, they can eliminate wasteful activities and bring down costs. In The Purpose-Based Library, Huber and seasoned public library administrator Potter build on insight gleaned from decades of experience to demonstrate how libraries can create real growth opportunities through concentrating on their true mission and purpose, and without spending a lot more money. With a focus on putting ideas into action, they point the way towards New ways to think about metricsReexamining customer self-driven servicesEffectively leveraging the considerable footprint of librariesIdentifying and assessing community needs and realigning library services accordinglyActively encouraging community fundraisingOffering cutting-edge services and programsPacked with boots-on-the-ground commentary, this book presents strategies to help libraries survive and succeed.

This guide helps librarians improve service with easy-to-follow strategies and techniques to make physical changes in library space and streamline procedures. This librarian's guide provides recommendations for quick and easy implementation of space-improving, time-saving practices. It also discusses the fundamentals of business and engineering management, public health, and other disciplines as they directly relate to the improvement of library service and management. Detailing free and affordable adjustments to the library environment as well as information for those who will participate in a renovation or new construction project, the book features tips for creating functional, efficient, and productive spaces; procedures for streamlining routine tasks; methods for arranging materials in high demand; and ways of reconfiguring or planning spaces. It will provide librarians with a working knowledge of process management that will help them to strengthen their competence and build confidence to address and troubleshoot problems, freeing them to engage in more meaningful interactions and activities that benefit the community.

In the current information environment, public and academic libraries are recognizing that providing access to materials is a complex multi-dimensional phenomenon. To meet the changing needs of their patrons, libraries are reorganizing their service structures and developing organizational units called “access services.” Even though access services fall within the realm of public services, technical services, or library circulations, they are driven by an entirely new mentality. There has been an extreme paucity of information on access services available for libraries struggling to meet the challenges of the electronic age. Access Services in Libraries is the first book to establish a theoretical base for access services while also suggesting connections between theory and practice. Anyone involved in access services or considering adoption of this new organizational unit will benefit from the information in this groundbreaking volume. Access Services in Libraries provides fresh thinking that reexamines previous writings in this area, presents new experimental designs and results, creates contemporary organizational solutions, and adopts innovative techniques for increasing users’access to library materials within constrained budgets. Access services librarians, circulation department librarians, and library managers, especially those who are considering a reorganization that will include access services, will benefit from the philosophical and theoretical articles as well as practical advice on the design, delivery, and evaluation of responsive library services. Chapters in this invaluable book fill the gap in the literature about access services including theoretical descriptions of access services, current developing trends in access services, the historical development of the access services concept, practical studies related to common access services issues, and projections of future challenges. As Peter Watson-Boone states in his preface, “This volume is notable for charting a new current of thinking and practice that is moving quickly into the mainstream. It substantially documents the state of the art, and should bring increased clarity and focus to the debate now proceeding in many libraries about how we are to honor a commitment to the 'access’concept in the era when it will challenge the 'ownership’concept as never before.”