The Best Practice Checklist is available for viewing or downloading in PDF format.

An evolving document

1. The best practise checklist does not purport to be a fully comprehensive guide to this subject. The Quality Group recognises that virtually all library and information services have well-developed strategies for eliciting user and facilitating user feedback. Not all of these are likely to be reflected here. The Checklist should be regarded as an evolving document and we welcome further input from M25 members.
2. There is no suggestion that services should offer all of the feedback methods outlined in the document. Service managers and staff will have the best feel for what works well for them
3. If you do know of other methods, not reflected here, but which have worked well for you, do feel free to share them with us so that we can add them to checklist.

Policies, guidelines and processes

1. One of the best ways to ensuring you have a robust and effective system for managing feedback, is to appoint a designated Feedback Manager through whom feedback can be routed. Most likely this will be one of your existing members of staff whose role description includes this responsibility. It doesn’t have to be a senior member of staff, or even a manager, but should be someone who has regular and direct involvement with service provision, good listening and interpretation skills and a positive approach to criticism.
2. Publish the Feedback Manager’s contact details on the web
3. Clear policies and guidelines, regularly reviewed and updated, will support both staff and users and help to manage expectations. As a minimum, consider making the following available:

For staff

• Policy documents defining what is understood by feedback and outlining procedures for dealing with it
• A formal complaints procedure so they are clear about what there responsibilities are and provide correct information to users
• ‘Feedback’ training for new starters with refresher training for other staff at sensible intervals
• Feedback Daybook to allow feedback at busy service points to be captured
• Service level definitions, so that staff are clear about what the user is entitled to expect from them and the service.

For users

• At least two to three ways in which they can provide day-to-day feedback on the service, at least one of which should be manual
• A ‘User Charter’ style document setting out, in general terms what the user can, and cannot expect, from the Library.
• Conditions of use/library rules so that the user is clear about what is expected from them (often published as part of a ‘charter’ type document
• Service level agreements so that users are aware of what they can legitimately expect in terms of service provision
• Published complaints procedure, outlining to whom the complaint should be directed, how long they can expect to wait for an answer, what to do in the event they find the response unsatisfactory, etc.
• An area on your website - and within the library itself - where you can feedback to your users so that they can see that the service managers are responsive to concerns
• One Quality Group member service does this regularly through what they call The Three Cs (Comments, Compliments and Complaints) and a ‘You said, we did’ Library feedback facility. In practise, significant feedback and the Library response to it, is published on the website, in published flyers and, shortly, through a prominently sited plasma screen.
• Summarised/easily digestible results of user surveys and other evaluation exercises.

M25 Quality Group
Last updated June 2006