Charge

The Service Assessment Task Force will review current methods and identify new strategies for evaluating the effectiveness of the services offered by the Boston Library Consortium. In addition, the Task Force will develop measures for determining the value of these services to individual member institutions (e.g., cost avoidance, expanded access to collections, etc.). The following services and programs are considered:

• On site access
• Borrower's Card Program
• Priority reciprocal free Interlibrary Loan
• Jointly licensed electronic resources
• Virtual Catalog, including direct patron borrowing
• Expedited delivery system (including non-returnables)

Action Items:

1. Determine measures of effectiveness and of value of each of the services. (i.e., what questions do we need to ask to know if the services provided are worth the investment of staff time and financial resources?)
2. Review current assessment methods, including LibQual, for these services (e.g., statistics, benchmarking) and determine if they provide the data required to meet the needs as identified in #1.
3. Identify new strategies for evaluating effectiveness and value for those services for which current data are insufficient.
4. Prepare summary document that describes the current strategy and/or recommends new strategies for each of the service areas, including: questions to be addressed; data to be gathered; assignment of responsibility for gathering and analyzing data; and, frequency of assessment and reporting.

Note:
Implementation of the assessment strategies is expected to occur in 2004/5, following Board review and approval of the Task Force recommendations.

Communication:
The Task Force will communicate with the BLC community through the BLC's web page, BLC-L, and with all appropriate COIs. The Task Force will submit written reports.