TY - JOUR AB - Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify gaps in performance of city libraries from the Czech and from the Slovak Republic engaged in the project Benchmarking of Libraries. The subject of research consists of input and output performance variables of selected 51 city libraries for the period of 2011-2015 and their mutual dependence and influence.Design/methodology/approach To analyse relationships among ten input and four output variables, the correlation and regression analyses were used. Regression analysis was focussed on four output variables – numbers of physical visitors of libraries, numbers of loans, numbers of visitors using the internet in the library, and numbers of registered readers. Interpretation of results was supplemented with classification multidimensional analysis Chi-square automatic interaction detection.Findings Findings reveal that besides others the significant gap in performance was represented by library additions, which means the renewal of library collections. Performance differences were also found between city libraries in the Czech Republic and those in the Slovak Republic.Research limitations/implications This paper evaluates gaps in the performance on representative sample of city libraries. The number of population served among individual selected 51 libraries ranges between 15 and 35 thousand inhabitants. Analysed data are from years 2011-2015.Originality/value The paper analyses, by using statistical methods, data that are generated within the benchmarking project. This methodology proves and reveals causalities among performance indicators of city libraries in an unconventional way. VL - 38 IS - 4/5 SN - 0143-5124 DO - 10.1108/LM-11-2016-0085 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/LM-11-2016-0085 AU - Vrabková Iveta AU - Friedrich Václav PY - 2017 Y1 - 2017/01/01 TI - Gaps in performance: benchmarking of the Czech and Slovak city libraries T2 - Library Management PB - Emerald Publishing Limited SP - 263 EP - 275 Y2 - 2024/04/25 ER -