Assessing service quality and organizational goal alignment for service units
Previous articles in this column have studied how technical service units provide value to their organizations. Those articles explored ways in which cataloging units provide service to libraries and how to develop and market those services to communicate their value. This article builds on this previous work by studying assessment approaches broadly for departments like technical services that provide “building block” or supporting services for user-facing organizations like libraries. The author proposes a framework for identifying an assessment outcome and connecting it back to a specific research question and design (i.e., intended outcome, assessment question[s], data gathering approach, data gathering method, data analysis method). Issues around question design, privacy, and organizational culture are discussed as factors to consider in the assessment of building-block services. Read More
