Corporate Library Services: Key Activities and Demonstrating Value

STUDY OVERVIEW

Faced with shrinking business resources, corporate libraries and information centers are under increasing pressure to justify their expenses and demonstrate their value to the companies that employ them. To respond successfully, library leaders need to know whether their activities are in line with what their organization needs to succeed in a competitive marketplace. Likewise, it's important for library leaders to effectively demonstrate their value to the organization.

Best Practices, LLC conducted this research to identify best practices, processes and quantitative benchmarks that libraries can use to compare the scope of their services and methods for demonstrating value with those at leading U.S. and multinational companies.

KEY TOPICS

• Services Offered
• Services Outsourced
• Management Policies
• Demonstrating Quality and Value
• Best Practices

• Services Provided
• Document Delivery Management
• Services Outsourced
• Role of Supplier Managment
• Management Policies in Use
• Effective Measures of Quality and Value
• Best Practices for Maximizing Library Effectiveness

• Outsourcing: Participating companies frequently use vendors to supplement staff in providing selected services, but they rarely outsource 100% of any library service. Serials management and online catalog maintenance are the most frequently fully outsourced services—each by 10% of participants. Basic reference is the service that least often involves outsourcing, with some vendor assistance at only 5% of libraries.

This benchmarking research employed an online survey instrument that was designed to capture both quantitative and qualitative data. In all, 43 library leaders at 41 leading U.S. and multinational companies across nine different industries participated in the survey.

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