For immediate release:
May 12, 2008
For more information, contact:
Kristina Justh
Association of Research Libraries
202-296-2296 ext. 136
kristina@arl.org
Stephen Town Appointed to LibQUAL+® Steering Committee
Washington DC—Stephen Town, Director of the University Library & Archives at the University of York (UK), is now a member of the LibQUAL+® Steering Committee. His nomination was unanimous by the LibQUAL+® Steering Committee members, who provide leadership and strategic vision for the LibQUAL+® program to ensure its continued growth and success. Town was instrumental in bringing LibQUAL+® to the UK, where more than 60 libraries have implemented it since 2003, representing more than 45% of academic institutions in the UK.
Stephen Town has been active in the field of library assessment for over 15 years, having entered the profession with a strong interest in and commitment to improving library quality and performance. Commencing with the first systematic benchmarking exercise in UK academic libraries resulting in the SCONUL Benchmarking Manual, Town has since led SCONUL initiatives in performance measures for information literacy, LibQUAL+®, and more recently the development of the Performance Portal. He also contributed to the last major revision of the SCONUL Statistical instrument.
Town has taught the management of library quality, performance, and customer service in the Universities of Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), Bristol, and Tilburg (TICER), and has recently contributed invited papers to international conferences and seminars at the Universities of Vilnius, Stellenbosch, Uppsala, the Balearic Islands, and at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, as well as to the Association of Research Libraries. He has provided advice on evaluation, measurement, and benchmarking to the British Library, the Open University, and to LIBER, the European Research Libraries organization.
Town became Chair of the SCONUL Working Group on Performance Improvement in 2007, and is a member of the editorial and advisory boards and committees of the journal Performance Measurement & Metrics; the Northumbria International Conferences on Performance Measurement; and the Library Assessment Conference organized by ARL, University of Virginia, and University of Washington in North America. His recent paper with Frankie Wilson of Brunel University on benchmarking and library quality maturity won an Emerald Outstanding Paper 2007 Award.
In his formal acceptance of the appointment, Town stated, “I look forward to helping to strengthen LibQUAL+®’s position as a de facto international standard in library quality surveys in the future. I know from first-hand experience the power and value of LibQUAL+® in raising quality and satisfaction levels in academic and research libraries, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to play some part in its further development.”
In addition to Town, the following are members of the LibQUAL+® Steering Committee: Colleen Cook (Texas A&M University), Fred Heath (University of Texas), Bruce Thompson (Texas A&M University), and Martha Kyrillidou and Duane Webster (ARL).
The University of York is one of Britain’s leading universities. Founded in 1963, York has since achieved the highest UK national scores for teaching quality, sixth place in the UK research league table, and a top 75 world university ranking. The university is now expanding its landscaped campus on the edge of one of Europe’s finest medieval cities to build on current success and introduce new programs of study and research. The Library and Archives offers services through the JB Morrell Library, the Raymond Burton Humanities Research Library, and libraries at the King’s Manor and York Minster. The Borthwick Institute for Archives houses the largest historical archive in northern England in new purpose-built facilities. The university is on the Web at http://www.york.ac.uk/.
LibQUAL+® is a suite of services that libraries use to solicit, track, understand, and act upon users’ opinions of service quality. These services are offered to the library community by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The program’s centerpiece is a rigorously tested Web-based survey bundled with training that helps libraries assess and improve library services, change organizational culture, and market the library. LibQUAL+® is on the Web at http://www.libqual.org/.
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 123 research libraries in North America. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/.
