Minutes of the meeting held on 8 June 2004 at the LSE

Present: Maureen Wade (LSE) (Chair); Angus Brown (Kings College); Kate Burke (UEL); Peter Godwin (London South Bank); Susan Howard (Imperial); Sue Price (Courtauld Institute); Leonie Reynolds (Customs & Excise for Claire McManus); Elaine Salter (Westminster)

Apologies: Wendy Fish (Wellcome); Antony Loveland (ULL); Claire McManus (observer)

1. Minutes of the meeting: 19 February 2004

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

2. Matters arising

The discussion of the benchmarking paper will be postponed, to a future meeting, when Wendy Fish can attend to discuss Wellcome experience.

The quality survey was completed with 26 responses being received.

It was agreed that a reminder of the survey should be made at the M25 Consortium meeting on 11 June. Action MW

The mystery shopping paper had been circulated.

3. Quality Survey Results and Action Plan

An example of terms of reference for an institutional quality committee should be circulated to the group. Action ES

An example of terms of reference for a library users committee should be circulated to the group. Action MW

The survey responses were tabled and each question and its response discussed.

It was agreed that an action plan should be developed from the results of the survey. The plan would be divided into early priorities for the next six months, then a second phase in the following six months.

Action Plan

The group identified the following areas for initial investigation

July - December 2004

• Service level definitions. Following up on survey results, investigate further with libraries using these; develop advice on different methodologies. A draft document should be brought to a future working group meeting, then report and templates (if appropriate) made available to M25 members via the website. Action AB/SH
  
  
• User feedback methods. Investigation of methods that work, how the data is handled, how the process and resulting actions are presented to users. Aim to develop a good practice guide for discussion at a future working group meeting, then dissemination to M25 members. Action CB
  
  
• Book availability surveys. Noted that only five libraries responding to the survey said they carried these out (included Westminster and LSE) Elaine volunteered to contact the other four libraries to compare notes , with the aim of developing guidelines and a template. Action ES
  
  
• User Surveys training event. Agreed to contact CPD25 to organise a workshop on user satisfaction surveys. Following the workshop, reports on good practice, different methodologies, software, analysis tools etc could be developed and made available on the website. Maureen will raise at CPD25 Steering Group. Action MW/SP

January - June 2005

Consideration of:

• Focus groups : best practice, application, in-house and externally supported. Possible topic for workshop via CPD25
  
  
• Perceptions of academic staff - accessing and using feedback from our academic community
  
  
• Benchmarking : making valid comparisons across institutions, developing standard methodologies

4. Mystery Shopping

Elaine introduced her paper on the mystery shopping project conducted at University of Westminster to investigate customer service issues in the library.

It was noted that in order to make the mystery shopping approach meaningful it was necessary to get reports on individual members of staff. A generic approach made it difficult to identify where problems lay and to target staff for re-training. However, reports on individuals had to be handled sensitively by managers and preparing staff for this was a key part of planning a mystery shopping exercise. It was suggested the paper could be revised slightly and presented on the web site. Action ES

5. Any other business

Maureen told the group she would be standing down as chair in order to take up her new duties as Secretary to the M25 Steering Group.

Update: Nicky Kershaw has agreed to become the new chair. Maureen will chair the September meeting and Nicky will attend, then take over the chair after that.

6. Dates for future meetings

Dates have provisionally been set as Thursday 9 September and Wednesday 1 December.

Angus Brown
June 2004