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National Standards and Guidelines for Public Libraries
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Beyond a quality service; standards and guidelines for Australian public libraries was launched
by Margaret Allen, ALIA Vice-president and President-elect, at the Public Libraries Western Australia conference, 1 April 2011. The publication may be downloaded from
ALIA's public libraries website (http://www.alia.org.au/publiclibraries/).
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Background |
In November 2009 the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and the Public Library Associations
commissioned Libraries Alive! to examine the feasibility
of developing national standards and guidelines for Australian public libraries. Not since 1990 when ALIA published
Towards a Quality Service: goals, objectives and standards for public libraries in Australia has there been
a single document to guide public library development at a national level.
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Libraries Alive! produced the
NSW standards and guidelines
(Living Learning Libraries) and the project made a flying start
by extending its evidence-based methodology from the state to the national arena.
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Working closely with Public Library Associations and using national data collated by National and State Libraries
Australasia (NSLA) from state and territory statistics, the project sought to determine whether it is practicable to derive standards and guidelines
which are applicable in all
jurisdictions. The project drew extensively on prior work, particularly
Living Learning Libraries (Library Council of NSW/State Library of NSW) and
Queensland public library standards and guidelines (State Library of Queensland),
and other material documenting best practice service provision.
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The aim is to support the work of Australia’s 1600 public libraries in bringing information, recreation and
lifelong learning opportunities to all Australians.
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Resources
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An environmental scan of the public library environment is presented in the Introduction to Living Learning Libraries.
A similar scan, relevant to the national publication, is included in Beyond a quality service.
The guidelines drew on the NSW guidelines, and were informed by the Queensland guidelines, by work from other Australian states and territories, and by overseas work.
An extensive bibliography is included.
A list of public standards and guidelines is accessible from the ALIA public libraries webpage.
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We would be grateful if stakeholders could advise us of other material relevant to the national guidelines.
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Consultation strategy | |
| ALIA/PLAC role |
ALIA’s Public Libraries Advisory Committee (PLAC) had oversight of the project, receiving regular reports from Libraries Alive!
Four representatives formed a Project Reference Group from which Libraries Alive! sought feedback. ALIA and PLAC members
publicised the project, distributed the draft standards and guidelines among their members,
and sought feedback.
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| Libraries Alive! role |
Libraries Alive! worked with the Project Reference Group during development of the draft standards; met regularly
with the Public Libraries Advisory Committee; produced draft documents for comment by PLAC, the public library
associations, their members and other stakeholders; and collected feedback to inform the final version of the standards
and guidelines.
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| News about the project |
The project is been documented on this website, and linked from ALIA’s
PLAC page. Information was posted to Australian public library
elists and announced at ALIA events, and news items appeared in Incite, aliaPUBNEWS and the newsletters of public
library associations. The launch of the publication was the subject of an article in Library news for Australian and New Zealand information
professionals (formerly Australian library news) issue 464, 31 March 2011, page 4.
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Progress reports |
1 April 2011. Beyond a quality service; standards and guidelines for Australian public libraries was launched
by Margaret Allen, ALIA Vice-president and President-elect, at the Public Libraries Western Australia conference. The publication may be downloaded from
ALIA's public libraries website (http://www.alia.org.au/publiclibraries/).
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January 2011. Text of Beyond a quality service; standards and guidelines for Australian public libraries
was transmitted to ALIA for final review and desktop-publishing.
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October to December 2010. We are grateful for all the feedback we have received,
and have sent acknowledgements to all who sent emails, made comments and asked questions. The draft document is being edited to take this feedback into account.
Supporting material (preliminary pages, introduction, acknowledgements,
glossary, bibliography and index) is being written/updated. Design and layout and final preparation for publication is expected to take place in January 2011.
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9 September 2010. In response to requests from stakeholders, the time for comment has been
extended until close of business on Friday 1st October.
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[Note: With the launch of the final version Beyond a quality service; standards and guidelines for Australian public libraries on 1st April 2011,
the the exposure draft is no longer available for downloading.]
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1 September 2010. Spring blossoms! The exposure draft of Standards and guidelines
for Australian public libraries was completed and sent to ALIA/PLAC at the end of August. Former National President Jan
Richards will be telling the good news to the ALIA Access Conference which opens in Brisbane today. This latest, 61-page
version with 12 standards and 20 guidelines is now open for comment until 17th September. Once these comments have been
incorporated the first edition will be considered complete and will be published by ALIA. Thanks to all who have helped us in what has been a major
undertaking, and especially John Murrell at West Gippsland Regional Library (Vic.), Russell Varney at the State Library of
Queensland and Leona Jennings at Gold Coast City Libraries (Qld).
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29 June 2010. The comprehensive draft version of the national standards and guidelines for public libraries was today sent to the Reference Group
for comment prior to release as a public discussion document. The draft contains 11 standard targets at base and enhanced levels. These are:
members as a percentage of population; library expenditure per capita; visits per capita; staff ratio for catchment population;
qualified staff for catchment population; library materials expenditure per capita; items per capita in collection; collection age;
stock turnover; provision of Internet computers; and satisfaction with library services. Guidelines cover library buildings, staff,
opening hours, collection management, information technology, information services, ILL, programs, customer service, marketing, mobile
libraries, local studies, literacy, services for Indigenous Australians, services for culturally diverse communities, services for
people with disability, services for young people, services for older people, and home library services. The draft standards and
guidelines will be discussed by ALIA and the Public Library Associations meeting at Albury on 13 July.
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16 June 2010. Early in May we were part of an ALIA/Public Library Associations teleconference to provide an update
on the project. On 24 May, also by teleconference, we participated in a lively discussion with the Queensland Public Libraries Standards
Committee, focusing on the differing purposes of state and national standards and guidelines. Last week we received the 2009 NSLA figures
(minus Tasmania who have yet to report) and their receipt has triggered a further refinement of our methodology. We are now experimenting with a
working hypothesis which accepts the 2009 NSLA averages as the base targets, and sets the enhanced targets as the average of the three best
performing states/territories. In this way we can retain a strong evidence-based approach to base targets, provide ‘aspirational’ targets
which are also evidence-based, and still preserve a simple update capability triggered by the release of successive annual NSLA statistics.
We are now drafting the standards and guidelines first for the Reference Group, and subsequently for presentation and discussion at the Public
Libraries Conference in Albury on 13 July.
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21 April 2010. A discussion paper on the rationale for determining Baseline and Enhanced targets for standards has been
produced for comment by the Reference Group. The main issue is whether to work with the NSLA reported averages, or to calculate medians from an
already-aggregated data set. Russell Varney from the State Library of Queensland has, with permission, supplied a comprehensive spreadsheet of NSLA data
from 2004/05 through to 2008/09. At this stage in the project we believe we have established a prima facie case for the feasibility of producing national
standards and guidelines for Australian public libraries – and we have almost all the data we need. Thanks to all involved.
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14 April 2010. Following the February meeting in Melbourne between ALIA and the Public Library Associations a Reference Group
was established to provide oversight for the project. Members are Leona Jennings (Gold Coast City, Qld), Sheena Joyce (City of Swan, WA), John Murrell
(West Gippsland Regional Library, Vic) and Janice Nitschke (Wattle Range, SA).
All States and Territories have now been contacted and granted approval for the use of their 2008/09 data as reported to NSLA as the evidence base for the
first cut of the draft Standards and Guidelines.
The State Library of NSW has generously given permission to use elements of the content, format and layout of the NSW standards for the national project.
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Sherrey & Ian
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