Further education libraries: assessing post‐incorporation performance Available to Purchase

The new managerial approach adopted in the post‐16 education sector together with increased student numbers have focused attention on performance assessment. Considers the extent to which libraries in the further education sector are actually assessing their performance. A postal survey was conducted during summer 1994 to find out the commitment of further education institutions and their libraries to performance assessment, the extent of reader services evaluation, how libraries collect feedback about their services from users and, finally,satisfaction levels of library managers with current assessment procedures. Results indicated that, of those surveyed, about one‐quarter of libraries had written policies on performance assessment; document availability, readers′ enquiry services and user education were evaluated by less than one‐third; over half of the libraries used course monitoring and evaluation and satisfaction surveys for feedback and,last, only one‐quarter of library managers felt satisfied with their performance assessment procedures.