Quality Audit in Library and Information Science (LIS)
Although the specific term “Quality Audit” is not commonly used in library practice, the underlying principles are well embedded in established library management frameworks. These include financial and operational audits, performance evaluation mechanisms, and quality management approaches such as Total Quality Management (TQM).
1. Audit and Accountability
Audits in libraries typically focus on ensuring transparency, compliance, and efficient use of resources.
Financial Audit:
Libraries—especially public and government-funded institutions—are routinely subject to formal financial audits. These reviews examine expenditures, procurement practices, budget adherence, and asset management (including inventory losses) to prevent waste, fraud, or mismanagement.
Security Audit:
In digital and networked library environments, security audits track user activity, monitor access attempts, and log system events to identify and mitigate potential threats, such as unauthorized access or data breaches.
2. Performance Evaluation and Quality Management
While not labeled as “quality audits,” systematic performance reviews and quality improvement initiatives fulfill a similar function by measuring service effectiveness against defined benchmarks.
Performance Evaluation:
This managerial process involves comparing actual service delivery against pre-established standards for quality, quantity, timeliness, and user satisfaction. Corrective actions are taken when performance gaps are identified. Developing objective, measurable criteria remains a challenge in service-oriented settings like libraries.Total Quality Management (TQM):
TQM is a holistic approach to continuous improvement centered on user satisfaction, staff involvement, and process efficiency. Key elements relevant to quality auditing include:- Ongoing monitoring of workflows and service outcomes to ensure alignment with user needs.
- Quality circles, where staff collaborate to identify and resolve operational issues.
- Adoption of internationally recognized frameworks such as the ISO 9000 series, which provides guidelines for implementing and maintaining quality management systems—even in non-commercial sectors like libraries.
LIS Standards
1. Bibliographic and Technical Processing Standards: These standards ensure consistency in the description and exchange of bibliographic information, which is fundamental to resource sharing and universal bibliographic control.
- ISBD (International Standard Bibliographic Description): Developed by IFLA, ISBD provides a standard format for bibliographic description that assists in the interpretation of records across different languages and facilitates their conversion to electronic form.
- MARC (Machine-Readable Cataloging) and MARC 21: Originally developed by the Library of Congress, MARC is a format standard for storing and exchanging bibliographic records in machine-readable form. MARC 21 is a harmonized version used globally, covering bibliographic, authority, holdings, classification, and community information data.
- AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules): This is a content standard for bibliographic description and determining access points (main and added entries).
- Other Formats: The sources also mention UNIMARC (a universal MARC format developed by IFLA for international exchange) and CCF (Common Communication Format) (developed by UNESCO to permit exchange between libraries and abstracting/indexing services).
2. Interoperability and Network Standards: These standards are essential for the exchange of data between different computer systems and for ensuring that networks function correctly.
- ISO 2709: This international standard specifies a generalized structure for the communication of bibliographic records on magnetic tape or other media, and it forms the basis for MARC formats.
- Z39.50: A widely cited protocol standard for information retrieval that enables a client to search and retrieve records from remote databases (servers) without knowing the specific search syntax of each system.
- Network Protocols: Standards like TCP/IP form the basis of the Internet, while standards like IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet) and IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) govern local area and wireless networks.
- Web and Discovery Protocols: More recent standards include OAI-PMH for metadata harvesting, and SRU/SRW for web-based search and retrieval.
3. Subject Indexing Standards: These standards ensure consistency in the verbal representation of subjects, allowing users to find all materials on a given topic under a uniform heading.
- Subject Heading Lists: Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and Sears List of Subject Headings (SLSH) are standard controlled vocabularies.
- Thesaurus Standards: The sources refer to the ANSI/NISO standard for thesaurus construction, which guides the creation of thesauri for information retrieval.
4. Quality and Performance Standards: These are norms against which library services and operations are measured.
- ISO 9000: As mentioned under "Quality Audit," this is a series of international standards for quality management systems.
- Performance Measurement: The managerial function of "controlling" relies on establishing standards for quality, quantity, and time to evaluate performance. Professional associations also help establish standards of performance.
- COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources): This is an international initiative that provides a Code of Practice to enable the consistent measurement of e-resource usage statistics.
5. Physical and Technology Standards: These relate to the physical infrastructure and specific technologies used in libraries.
- Library Furniture: The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has developed standards for the quality and dimensions of library furniture.
- RFID: The sources mention ISO/CD 28560, an ISO standard that defines a data model for the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in libraries for tasks like inventory management and circulation.