Quality measures for libraries and information services

Academic libraries' services have changed very fast in the last twenty years. Nowadays, electronic resources, networks and the World Wide Web represent a large parcel of the library services. Academic librarians must manage staff, information in several supports, and technical activities to produce quality services. Quality services means resources and services which satisfy users' expectations. It is very clear that librarians must use management tools to run academic libraries services. These tools help them to assess services performance, to make decisions, to improve services and to achieve a better quality. In this context user needs and their perceptions, in relation to services offered by libraries and documentation centers, have been awakening the interest of professionals working with the management community and personnel. In an academic environment this lack of knowledge is considered to jeopardize teaching, research activities as well as the generation of new knowledge. The main proposal of this paper is to describe briefly two evaluation quality models for academic libraries: • The Portuguese investigation proposes an action model to measure the performance of the Universidade do Porto (UP)libraries. This tool is justified on the CAF - Common Assessment Framework (an auto-evaluation tool based on the European Foundation Quality Management Excellence Model), the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP); • The PAQ - Quality of Products and Services Evaluation Program of the SIBi/USP, based on the Model SERVQUAL, is an assessment research implemented in the academic libraries of Universidade de São Paulo (USP), in Brazil. The proposal has been presented as being viable and necessary in the management of the libraries of the SIBi/USP. Significant correlations were obtained between these two projects in order to improve customer satisfaction, staff satisfaction and performance for library services. It is made clear that dialogue among staff, academic library users and external partners is extremely important in an assessment process. The choice of indicators is the outcome of a participative performance evaluation process. These evaluation quality processes are, in other words, important tools to find new ways to motivate employers to stay with the organization that encourages growth