You Are What You Measure

Abstract

For decades academic libraries technical services have adapted to technological advancements and changes in scholarly publishing. Traditional technical services work has decreased as processes were automated (Hertstein, Rabine, & Sweet, 2018). Technical Services departments must proactively identify areas for future growth and metrics for measuring their work. The context and language that these metrics use is vital to their understanding and function. This chapter looks at the usual Technical Services assessment measures and the goals they support. It then considers how these assessments could be reframed in order to support a goal of new service creation in Technical Services. It considers what additional benchmarks could be used as standards and norms to support goals for a future-oriented Technical Services negotiation.

Citation

Theimer, S. (2021), "You Are What You Measure", Hines, S.S. (Ed.) Technical Services in the 21st Century (Advances in Library Administration and Organization, Vol. 42), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 119-129. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0732-067120210000042010