Group Minutes

SOCIETY OF COLLEGE NATIONAL & UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Advisory Committee on Performance Improvement

Minutes of the meeting held on Thursday 27 January 2005

Present:Maxine Melling (Chair), Toby Bainton, Angela Conyers, Susan Copeland, Claire Creaser, Suzanne Enright, Philip Payne, Chris West, Jacqueline Whiteside

Apologies: Pete Dalton, Anne Hannaford, Tony Lewis, Stephen Town

1. Minutes

The Minutes of the meeting held on 22 September 2004 were accepted as a correct record.

2. Matters arising from the Minutes

There were no matters arising not already covered by the Agenda.

3. ACPI Annual Report

The ACPI Annual Report for 2004 was approved. All Committee members were thanked for their contributions during the year.

4. ACPI Action Plan

The ACPI Action Plan for 2005, in the new template for annual plans, was approved.

5. SCONUL Strategic Review

Suzanne gave a helpful outline of the outcomes of the SCONUL Strategic Review process. Feedback from members had shown that the work of ACPI was highly valued and the Committee also had a clearly defined role. There was no requirement from the Executive Board for significant changes in the focus and activities of ACPI. The following steps would be taken to align the work of the Committee to the new SCONUL strategic planning and group structure:

• Formally, all current SCONUL committees were being stood down and would be replaced by new Working Groups or Task and Finish groups. ACPI would be replaced by a Working Group with a similar remit. There would be a discussion at the next meeting on whether “Performance Improvement” was the clearest description of the Working Group’s activities. Also, although the changed group structure was an opportunity for changes in membership, the need to retain continuity was also recognised.

• A standard template covering the new Working Group’s remit, objectives, deliverables and any possible financial support would need to be completed.

Action:CW

• The role and activities of the Statistics Sub-Group would be more closely integrated into the Working Group. The link with UCISA activities on statistics would be maintained through the UCISA-nominated member of the Working Group.

• Given the value which some SCONUL members derived from the annual LibQUAL+ survey, a clearer vision for the long-term sustainability of this activity needed to be developed.

6. SCONUL Statistical Return 2003-04

To date, fifty-nine SSR returns had been received. Additional guidance notes had been made available on the ACPI website to help with the completion of the new questions on e-measures. A workshop on e-measures data completion was also being piloted in Wales on 10 March. Proposals for further support for e-measures from evidence base would be brought to the next meeting. It was also noted that, once they had been tested and finalised, some e-measures would need to be included in the annual HELMS publication.

7. SCONUL Statistics on the Web

Following the Committee meeting, a sub-group of members reviewed the outstanding deliverables from ILRT for the SCONUL Statistics on the Web service. It was agreed that Maxine, Claire, Philip and Toby would meet with ILRT within four to six weeks to attempt to resolve:

• Minor glitches affecting the current service
• Formats for the production of reports (these would be finalised by the sub-group prior to the meeting)
• Production of historical data, if feasible
• Issues relating to communication and response times from ILRT

Action: MM et al

8. SCONUL Survey Template

• Template update: Chris tabled a draft update of the SCONUL satisfaction survey template. This placed more emphasis on electronic access to library resources and was designed primarily for web-based surveys. A number of useful suggestions were made, including questions on branch libraries, gender and Race Relations classifications. Chris would revise the draft and circulate it to the Committee. It was also noted that Priority Research were interested in providing standard templates to SCONUL members using Libra software. Chris would arrange to meet them to discuss this [subsequently arranged for 21 February]. Additionally, good examples of surveys from SCONUL libraries not using the template would also be provided on the SCONUL website, as the Committee’s primary role was to encourage members to obtain customer feedback, rather than prescribing a particular methodology.

Action: CW

• Benchmarking SCONUL surveys: Claire produced a report on the pilot benchmarking of standard data from the SCONUL survey template. Nine libraries had supplied data for the pilot: seven of these had enough commonality to allow benchmarking. The pilot had shown that benchmarking from the SCONUL survey was feasible and some interesting comparative data had been produced. To ensure sustainability, it was agreed that this could be developed as a fee-based LISU service, rather than an ACPI activity. Once the updated SCONUL survey template had been finalised, then this service would be publicised by LISU, probably on an annual basis.

Action: CC; CW

9. LibQUAL+

The 2004 round had been summarised in a recent SCONUL Focus. Interestingly, the 2004 results showed a significant variation from those for 2003, which needed further analysis. Seventeen SCONUL libraries had signed up for the 2005 annual LibQUAL+ survey. This included seven repeat participants. It was agreed that further discussion on long-term support issues for LibQUAL+ were needed (see 6d).

Action: MM; ST

10. Impact Measurement Projects

A special issue of Library and Information Research was currently in preparation which would contain articles and reports from all ten participating libraries in phase one of the project. A mid-term review was being undertaken in phase two libraries; this was now scheduled to end by December 2005. The two phases would be evaluated before considering a further phase.

11. Dissemination of ACPI Activities

A number of ACPI projects and activities (e-measures, benchmarking, LibQUAL+, the new survey template) appeared to be potentially useful topics for conferences.

Action: TB; MM

12. Date of Next Meeting

Subsequently confirmed as Thursday 12 May 2005, at SCONUL HQ.