From 1996 onwards, then, the Quality Assessment National Plan and the adoption
of its agenda by regional authorities and Universities alike has resulted in a growing
acceptance by the Spanish academic community of the challenges and opportunities
offered by evaluation and quality assurance activities.
Academic librarians have been committed to this culture of quality from the very
beginnings and in most cases have being leading the way in their own institutions. General
tools like the Evaluation Guide referred to above developed to be applied in administration
and services alike were of little use for libraries, so academic libraries have been the first
units to develop their own evaluation guides at local and regional levels.
University System in Andalusia (Spain) is formed by 10 Universities financed by
regional government. The Quality Unit of Andalusia Universities convened in 2000 an
Assessment University Libraries Pilot Plan to do a global analysis of the Library System.
This Pilot Plan has had three steps: - During 2000-2002, a technical committee to draft a new evaluation guide for
academic libraries. Based on the EFQM, because of its growing influence in the evaluation
of the public sector and not-for-profit organizations across Europe. During the course of
our work we were delighted to see that we concurred basically with the approach taken by
LISIM.
The Guide is divided into 5 parts, as follows: Analysis and Description of 9
criteria adapted to library scenario, 35 Tables for data collection, a set of 30 quality and
performance Indicators, a Excellence-rating matrix, an objective tool, to determine the
level of excellence achieved by the library on a scale from 0 to 10, and General guidelines
for the Assessment Committees of University Departments (the basic unit of research
assessment undertaken by the University) and of degree courses (the basic unit of
assessment of teaching personnel).
- In 2002-2004, a coordination committee drove the assessment process of 9
libraries and tested materials and evaluation methodology. The Pilot Plan has finalised
with External Evaluation for 5 External Committee formed by librarians, faculties and
EFQM methodology specialist.
The aim of this paper is explain different parts and strong points of this process and how
EFQM is suitable for all kind of librarie
