MINUTES:
Present. L. Braunschweiger, C. Campbell, M. Cochran, J. Dost, B. Edinger,
C. Hoffman (recorder), J. Fong, R. Liu, P. Maughan (guest), M. McDonald,
P.Payne, M. Rancer, D. Rez, E. Woods, F. Yasaki, F.Yip
Absent: T. Dilworth, R. Moon
I. Announcements
Mike announced that LBS just learned that the structure of BIS
is changing on July 1. Dave Rez will have to rewrite the programs for all
of his reports which should be issued to units starting in late Summer or
early Fall.
The Vice Chancellor financial functions are moving from Horace
Mitchell to Jim Hyatt who is also is responsible for the budget. Purchasing
will stay with Horace Mitchell which takes what we do in one function and
splits it into two functions which may make problems more difficult to
track.
Janice Dost provided an update of current Librarian Recruitment
efforts .
Received: Head of Circulation Services, Doe/Moffitt
Classics (50%)
Prepared Announcements and forwarded to CAPA:
Business, Evening MBA Librarian
Head of Circulation Services, Doe/Moffitt
Classics (50%)
Closed Recruitment Portion and prepared packages for Search Committees:
Judaica Librarian
Assistant Head, Music Library
Reference Librarian, Environmental Design
Final Packages to Academic Personnel:
Assistant Head, Engineering Library
Fred Yasaki announced that Space Planning has hired an Associate
Architect, Jeff Johnson.
Bob Liu announced that LBS has hired Bill Brockett as the
Library's new Buyer. Having our own buyer increases the Library's
purchasing power to $25,000. Bob is now recruiting to replace Bill.
II. Update on Xerox Review, J. Fong, P. Payne
Jeanne and Paul reported on progress of the Xerox Review Task Force.
Jeanne and the group visited units to get an overall impression of last
Fall's Xerox installation and gather suggestions for how the Library can
better plan for the next copier replacement project so that it will go more
smoothly for staff and users. Overall they found that better
organization and more effective communication at the beginning of the
process would have been helpful including publicity, staff input, and
using email and the Web to disseminate information.
Paul reported that most units were pleased overall except for the
initial installation. Units were not happy with overall communication
about what they were going to get, what features were available to
determine if they needed upgrades or additional features. There was
discussion about how to proceed at this point, to determine if some units
feel they need additional or higher volume machines. Fred raised a
related issue of the effects on the infrastructure for units that asked for
more than what they originally had. This includes physical modifications to
space, data, and furniture requirements. Any further requests will have to
include more careful planning for space and infrastructure needs.
III. Customer Service Surveys, P. Maughan, E. Woods
Pat Maughan and Elise Woods gave presentations on two survey approaches
aimed at getting useful information that can pinpoint things we can do to
improve service, including things that we might have overlooked.
Pat Maughan is currently co-chair of the Library User Survey Team whose
survey of Library service quality is slated for October 2000 and Elise is
assisting Assistant Vice Chancellor Coley on benchmarking measurement
methodologies.
ServQual, Pat Maughan :
ServQual measures the gap that exists between users perception of what an
excellent service organization offers and their perception of how well a
particular organization performs that service.
The ServQual model has been used since 1988 in various service industries,
such as banking, legal, medical, and has a strong track record. It consists
of a set of paired statements. The first set of measures asks the customers
to think about an excellent service and evaluate the statements and how
critical they think their presence is to an service.. The second set of
measures replicates the same set of statements but asks the person instead
to indicate the extent to which they think the service provides that
particular element.
In the analysis across numerous studies five overarching dimensions emerged
as being most important to service quality:
1.Reliability. The ability to perform certain tasks dependably and
accurately, for example, maintaining accurate billing records, delivering
the service when you say you are going to deliver it, etc.
2. Responsiveness speed. The organization=92s willingness to help customers,
for example, getting overdue notices out in a timely manner, returning
customer calls.
3. Assurance. The knowledge and courtesy of the staff, the ability to
inspire trust.
4. Empathy. The ability to understand customer needs.
5. Tangibles. These are the physical space, handouts, web sites etc.
The ServQaul instrument has been used in academic, public and special
libraries in the U.S., Great Britain, and Canada, at Yale University,
Carnegie Mellon, the University of Texas, and right now 13 libraries across
the country are testing the applicability of ServQual.
The primary advantage is that the results that come back are fairly rich in
terms what specifically a library needs to do in order to improve its
service. One of the primary benefits is the ability in the survey
instrument to identify areas that one can actually do something about
fixing.
Pat stressed that the ServQual model is not be used as a comparison model
between Libraries. It is specific to the institution. The focus is the gap
that exists between expectation and perception within the institution, and
it evaluates service elements in relations to the importance users place on
them.
In Addition to paired statements, there is another category that takes
the five dimensions and asks the respondent to indicate what importance
they attach to each one of those five dimensions.
The Balanced Scorecard, Elise Woods:
The Balanced Scorecard was developed by 2 professors, Norton and Kaplan
from Harvard Business School. The pilot program being initiated by
Assistant Vice Chancellor Ron Coley for his units, Materiel Management,
Physical Plant-Campus Services and UC Printing and Mail Services takes
Norton and Kaplan=92s basic premise and combines it with other principles
based on the Baldridge Award and Excellence in Higher Education.
This approach sets up measurements (metrics) to establish critical success
factors such as timeliness, accuracy, reliability, improved cycle time and
dependability to provide excellent service to internal and external
customers. The metrics are designed to establish baseline data which
tracks the performance of service units to provide to their customers and
identify key goals. The Balanced Scorecard focuses on four perspectives:
The people perspective, work processes, the services we provide to
customers and our financial resources. Each quadrant impacts the other with
people at top People, Processes, Services and Resources.
1. The People Perspective - focuses on people as the most important
resource which requires development through training and providing tools
they need to perform at optimum efficiency.
2. Work Processes - looks at how efficient our work processes are how we
can plan to improve those.
3. The Service Perspective - looks at how well we respond to our customers
needs
4. The Financial Resources -- shows how efficiently and wisely we use our
resources.
For each of these perspectives, specific measurements have been developed
to track performance over time and see where improvements are needed and
what strategies need to be implemented to meet the needs of the customers.
The data extracted from the measures also helps to focus strategic planning
efforts in the future.
Elise showed examples of a Balance Scorecard.
For the People Perspective, the department wanted to promote an
organizational climate conducive to high performance. The measure was the
results from the Employee Climate Survey. In the example, each employee in
all the units will be taking the survey annually. Each employee will have
a training development plan. In the first year it will be part of the
position job description and the employee=92s performance evaluation. In the
next year, a plan should be in place and underway.
Customer Service Results from a survey of key customers could be annual or
quarterly. One methodology is to administer the survey over the web to key
customers that are identified in the units. To make the survey useful and
meaningful to the customers, the model would elicit input from customers
and staff to develop the questions. Some of the measures in this
perspective include improving cycle time. Campus Supply felt a critical
success factor was to provide next day product deliveries. The metrics
would track the percent of orders delivered by the next business day.
Another goal expressed included a customer education program to enable
customers to become more self-sufficient and efficient by learning the
online ordering system.
Each unit has a different set of measures depending on what they need to
track and in what areas they need to improve. The Customer Survey, and
Employee Survey are ongoing measures within the Balance Scorecard program
to find out what the customers feel about our services and how we can
improve them. The measures will also help staff at all levels to stay
focused on the goals, promote discussion within the units about how they
can improve and develop reward and recognition programs tied to the Balance
Scorecard results.
In terms of middle management, the results of the survey will be to focus
on better services to campus customers, and engagement of all staff at all
levels within the organization. Management will use actual data for
strategic planning and resource allocation and provide a better alignment
with the Mission of the University.
The ASC group discussed using both methodologies. Using the ServQual survey
tool to help identify what is important, the expectations, and then develop
the measures that need to be tracked using the benchmarking approach as a
way of defining whether what is being done is important, and whether it is
being done well or not.
This would make Administrative Services accountable and measurements could
be reported out to The Library in the annual reports or in another report
format.
The task will be to develop a ServQaul survey tool to identify the
expectations, and then from that develop the measures we need to track.
Elise will distribute an existing UC survey that focuses specifically on
internal administrative customers which could be used as a tool to build
from as a survey instrument and focus.
The appointment of a subcommittee of 3 people with Pat Maughan serving as a
consultant was tabled until the July meeting .