Dear All,
I wonder how other library services are dealing with this standard? We
just fail to reach the standard of 85% - our actual for 04/05 is 83.4%.
We have looked at every stage in the supply chain and made improvements -
there is little more we can do from that end. We collect data for this
standard by means of a sample, rather than every request.
Our downfall is that we take pre-publication requests, and this skews the
result without us having the means in our power to improve. When we know
we are purchasing a book for a request, we fast-track it through ours and
our supplier's systems. But obviously we order books pre-publication, and
do not know exactly which ones will be requested, Harry Potter etc apart.
In any case, the problem is primarily caused by taking pre-publication
requests, rather than our supply times once published.
We are determined to continue to offer pre-publication request service, as
our customers make good use of this service, and we are not going to
reduce our service quality to meet an externally-imposed performance
standard. I believe that when the standards were originally introduced,
there was talk that some way would be devised to allow for best practice
such as ours that appeared to show under-performance relative to other
library services that do not take requests for books not yet published.
What do others do? I would be grateful for all responses, and will
summarise for the list.
Thanks in advance,
Keith Patterson
Senior Libraries Manager (Performance & Communications)
St Helens Library & Information Services
tel: 01744 677448
email: [log in to unmask]
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