Meeting Minutes

1. Minutes of the meeting held on 24 April 2006

The minutes were accepted as an accurate record of the meeting.

2. Matters arising

Minute 5: the mystery shopping seminar was very successful.

3. User feedback: best practice checklist

This is now on the M25 Consortium website. It needs to say ‘user feedback’ on the document to indicate what it is best practice for. The Group agreed that it would be good to have a feedback mechanism on the website. Nicky will contact John Gilby to see if this is possible. Action: NK

4. Quality Assessment Toolkit

The group looked at three examples of assessment toolkits: from the Museums and Libraries Agency, from the Scottish Further Education Funding Council and the FFORWM (a Welsh FE Colleges agency). None of the examples are directly related to higher education and although it was acknowledged that an HE toolkit was desirable, it would also be a lot of work. Before embarking on such a project, the Group would need to feel that there was some demand for such a document. Nicky will email M25 Consortium library directors to see if there is any practical interest. In the meantime, Pete Ryan, who raised the topic, can develop something at Canterbury Christchurch and this Group will be interested to see what he does. Action: NK

5. Actions for the coming year

The Group reviewed its Acton Plan for 2006-07. M25 Consortium funding exists for large projects and we can submit a proposal for a project worker to collect SLD target and performance data. The Group agreed this was the best way forward and Elaine will draft a proposal. Action: ES

In the context of our completed project on SLD templates, the Group discussed the question of publicity of such work and how effective it was in alerting M25 Consortium libraries to new developments produced by its working groups. An alerting service might be useful. Janet is a member of the M25 Consortium’s Advocacy group and she will raise this as an issue at their next meeting. Action: JP

Our action plan lists two events, one on benchmarking and the other on charter-marks. Wendy and David agreed to organise the first, Kate will organise the second. She will contact Dave Puplett, the cpd25 administrator to discuss possible dates within the cpd25 timetable of events for 2006-07. Action: WF, DC, KB

Although not on our Action Plan, the group discussed opinion meters and felt this was worth exploring. Anglia Ruskin University Library has recently purchased one from CRT Solutions and Thames Valley University Library also intend to. The model can be programmed with any questions and it includes the software to collate answers. The machines can be purchased or rented and are good for quick surveys. The group decided that it would be useful to see a demo and also to look at other models. Gill will find out if a demo of the CRT Solutions machine can be demonstrated at our next meeting and Nicky will contact other SCONUL library directors to see if other models are being used in UK academic libraries. Action: GB, NK

6. Benchmarking pilot at the Wellcome Trust

Wendy described the pilot which includes the libraries of the Kings Fund, SOAS and the National Art Library. Finding suitable partners who were willing to come on board was very difficult and the final list emerged only after many visits. Even so, only the National Art Library is directly comparable to the Wellcome Trust Library which is co-ordinating the pilot and collating the data on behalf of the participants. Some examples of what is being measured are: opening hours, number of enquiries, median time of document processing, speed of supply and percentage of stock on open access. The Group thanked Wendy for sharing this information.

7. Date and venue of next meeting

2pm on 14 November at the Wellcome Trust.

Further meetings will be held in February, April and June 2007. These dates to be decided later.

Minutes by ES

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