The evaluation of library and information services in times of economic restraint: the university view

First, it is necessary to define some of these terms: The Oxford English Dictionary defines to evaluate as ‘to work out the value of, to give it a quantitative expression; to find numerical expression for’, and evaluation as ‘the action of appraising or valuing, a calculation or statement of value’. Times of economic restraint began in the latter 1970s, but I shall concentrate on the 1980s, the period which coincides with my period of office as the manager of a university library.