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Good practice in information and library services (ILS) provision

“Demonstrate your worth to your employer by relating what you do to the

corporate objectives of your organisation” Jon Scown, CILIP Career Development

Group’s President (quoted in Library & Information Gazette 12 August - 1 September 2010)

It is all too easy for an Information and Library service (ILS) to become stuck in its pattern of service provision and to miss new opportunities of greater value. The following points

exemplify key aspects of current good practice in ILS provision in the special library and

information services sector and are provided to help managers and staff reflect on the key

question: Are we delivering value for money to our organisation?

1.  An Information and Library strategy and business plan for the current financial year has

been agreed with senior managers; strategies for service provision are clearly/visibly

aligned with the goals of the organisation; resources invested in each service and

product are clear.

2.  The service articulates its value clearly in terms of direct business benefits to the

organisation e.g. saving time and money, facilitating decision making, reducing risk,

creating competitive advantage. ILS is recognised by the organisation as critical for its

success. Performance measures have been agreed and follow the organisation’s

standard practices; customers are involved in assessing value; the value contributed by

the service is recognised as more than its cost.

3.  Customers have been segmented into groups with distinct information needs and ILS

support is prioritised in terms of its relative importance to specific areas of the

organisation; ILS recognises the impracticality of providing the same levels of services to

all staff and focuses on the areas where the value delivered is greatest. ILS provides

constructive advice to those seeking a service that cannot be provided internally and

regularly reviews its customer segmentation against business needs.

4.  ILS operates in close partnership with priority customer groups, often working directly

with business and project teams; every service and product has been assigned a business

champion with which ILS can work to ensure relevance and track changes in need;

proactive customer relationships are such that the ILS is regularly involved in business

planning.

5.  The role and importance of the physical library as an information access point has beenredefined/agreed with the organisation as print becomes superseded by provision of e-

resources for many topics; digital resources (journals, databases, books and other

content materials) are provided at the desktop to meet specific subject and user needs

conveniently and in a timely manner.

6.  ILS is active in simplifying and thus encouraging access to content; portals provide an

integrated and seamless desktop environment for alerting, research and viewing the full

text of materials using internal search engines or those provided by suppliers; topic

based clusters simplify use; desktop facilities enable materials not held by the

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Good practice in information and library services (ILS) provision

organisation to be easily obtained; analytical and visualisation tools are in place for

transforming content into intelligence for action.

7.  Proactive training and support is provided to support customers in finding and using

information that they need; expert customers are involved in training delivery and

coaching colleagues.

8.  The ILS provides evaluated information services – both alerting and expert research and

analysis services - for priority groups, where this is more cost-effective than self–service.

9.  The published information portfolio is regularly reviewed with customers at a strategic

level; metrics are in place to track the use of e-resources and support investment review;

effective and efficient approaches are established for contract management and

negotiation, journal management and book and document supply, ensuring that

suppliers undertake much of the routine administration and processing work on theorganisation’s behalf.

10. ILS is a key contributor to IM and KM strategies for the organisation; ILS is active in

looking for opportunities where ILS skills can deliver value; to do so, ILS partners with

other groups – HR, IT, Strategic planning and functional units; ILS does not fight to

‘protect its patch’ and is a flexible asset open to ideas from inside and outside the

organisation; ILS regularly looks for good practice in other organisations.

Written by: Sandra Ward, on behalf of CILIP Special Library and Information Services

Sector Panel, October 2010