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The research project focuses on aspects of multi-skilling as utilized in academic libraries internationally which contributes to providing a quality service delivery. The researcher&rsquo / s extensive literature search, focuses on aspect of multi-skilling programs such as: job rotation, cross-training, job enrichment, on-the-job training, and succession planning conducted at academic libraries in America, Australia, Canada, Birmingham, Nigeria, Kenya, Botswana and South Africa. Multi-skilling can be seen as the umbrella term for the above concepts.<br /> <br /> It was found in the literature that aspects of multi-skilling as applied in American academic libraries was a voluntary process and often occurred between the Public service and the Technical service within academic libraries. At Wollongong, Queensland and Birmingham academic libraries the program was formal, and staff had to apply to enrol for the program. This does not mean that staff qualified automatically. This was a formalized policy within the university. In Nigeria, Kenya and Botswana the program, at academic libraries was formal but literature does not indicate if it is a university policy or just the academic library&rsquo / s policy.<br /> The immense benefits derived from all the aspects of multi-skilling are: contributes towards employee training and development / employee satisfaction / reduction in boredom / increased productivity / enhances job skills / increased versatility / career mobility and advancement / increased intellectual stimulation and confidence / enhances workers&rsquo / flexibility and broadens their knowledge / achieves efficiency in the workplace / helps break down barriers in efficiency which exists on many levels / better communication between the various units in the library / and better understanding of responsibility involved in other units.<br /> <br /> For academic libraries to become effective, the management of service organizations needs to create a climate in which staff will function effectively, be happy and derive maximum satisfaction from their work. Academic libraries exist for the benefit of their users, supporting the teaching and research programs of their parent institutions. To achieve this objective, the academic library manager needs to have effective staff organization strategies devised to ensure best quality service delivery to its users.<br /> These strategies employed are job rotation, cross training, job enrichment, succession planning and on-the-job training that will ultimately contribute towards provision of a quality service delivery.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the leader behavior of library directors in medium size academic libraries and the influence of the director on selected goal setting activities and goal achievement. Hypotheses were developed to determine if relationships existed between: (1) the leader behavior of library directors as perceived by middle management supervisors and self-perceptions of leader behavior by the director; (2) the middle management perceptions of leader behavior of the directors and the existence of selected goals as perceived by middle --management supervisors; and (3) the middle management perceptions of leader behavior of the directors and the level of goal achievement as perceived by middle management supervisors. The population for the study was identified as medium size academic libraries associated with universities accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Directors and middle management supervisors in twenty-four universities participated in the study. Participants responded to the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnarie XII and a Selected List of Goal Setting Activities developed for the study. The Hotelling T2 and the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient were used to analyze the data.FindingsThe LBDQ-XII mean scores for directors were higher on all subscales than the mean scores for subordinate supervisors.A significant difference was found in leader behavior of directors of academic libraries as perceived by subordinates and self-perceptions by the directors.The subscale of Consideration clearly contributed to the rejection of null Hypothesis I at the .05 level of significance.The subscales of Initiating Structure, Tolerance of Freedom, Production Emphasis, and Predictive Accuracy provided some evidence of a joint contribution to rejection of the hypothesis of no difference. However, the contribution was not great enough for any of the four factors to be independently significant with a critical value derived by application of a conservative Post Hoc t test at the .05 level of significance.Seventy-six percent of all responses for goal existence were circled yes.No correlation was found between middle management perceptions of library director behavior and perceptions about the existence of goals.An average score of 20.832 was observed for goal achievement for all participating libraries. The highest attainable score for achievement on all goals would have been 11.000 and the lowest 55.000.No correlation was found between middle management perceptions of library director behavior and perceptions about the level of goal achievement.Conclusions1. Directors of middle size academic libraries and subordinates do not agree on perceived behavior of library directors on either the Person or the System Dimensions. Library director perceptions are higher on the consideration factor of the People Dimension. Thatrelationships between the director and middle management supervisors as exhibited by trust, respect, and friendship, than are perceived by the middle management supervisors.2. The mean number of yes responses from each respondent indicates a general acceptance of selected goals in middle size academic libraries at the department level is, library directorsperceive stronger social.3. Based on the average response to goal achievement, middle management supervisors generally perceived that the selected goals are being achieved to a moderate degree in middle size academic libraries.4. The LBDQ-XII offers one method of examining the leadership style of an academic library director.

The research project focuses on aspects of multi-skilling as utilized in academic libraries internationally which contributes to providing a quality service delivery. The researcher&rsquo / s extensive literature search, focuses on aspect of multi-skilling programs such as: job rotation, cross-training, job enrichment, on-the-job training, and succession planning conducted at academic libraries in America, Australia, Canada, Birmingham, Nigeria, Kenya, Botswana and South Africa. Multi-skilling can be seen as the umbrella term for the above concepts.<br /> <br /> It was found in the literature that aspects of multi-skilling as applied in American academic libraries was a voluntary process and often occurred between the Public service and the Technical service within academic libraries. At Wollongong, Queensland and Birmingham academic libraries the program was formal, and staff had to apply to enrol for the program. This does not mean that staff qualified automatically. This was a formalized policy within the university. In Nigeria, Kenya and Botswana the program, at academic libraries was formal but literature does not indicate if it is a university policy or just the academic library&rsquo / s policy.<br /> The immense benefits derived from all the aspects of multi-skilling are: contributes towards employee training and development / employee satisfaction / reduction in boredom / increased productivity / enhances job skills / increased versatility / career mobility and advancement / increased intellectual stimulation and confidence / enhances workers&rsquo / flexibility and broadens their knowledge / achieves efficiency in the workplace / helps break down barriers in efficiency which exists on many levels / better communication between the various units in the library / and better understanding of responsibility involved in other units.<br /> <br /> For academic libraries to become effective, the management of service organizations needs to create a climate in which staff will function effectively, be happy and derive maximum satisfaction from their work. Academic libraries exist for the benefit of their users, supporting the teaching and research programs of their parent institutions. To achieve this objective, the academic library manager needs to have effective staff organization strategies devised to ensure best quality service delivery to its users.<br /> These strategies employed are job rotation, cross training, job enrichment, succession planning and on-the-job training that will ultimately contribute towards provision of a quality service delivery.

The primary purpose of this study was to test the following hypothesis: The internal use (use within the technical services unit for decision making and planning) of statistical data will be significantly higher for managers scoring in the Sensing-Thinking (ST) scale of the self-assessment instrument Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. A Technical Services Statistics Survey Form was developed in order to collect statistical data from the technical services managers participating in the study. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was utilized to record managers' personal management style. Thirty-two managers participated in the two-part study. The hypothesis of the study was not supported because no significant differences in the predicted direction were found to exist between the use of the technical services statistics and management style groups as measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. (A Mann-Whitney U Test was used due to the small, uneven sample size.) There were significant differences between Sensing-Thinking (ST) and Intuitive-Feeling (NF) types, but not in the direction predicted by the hypothesis. Possible explanations for this unexpected finding include the very small sample size, the larger percentage of male respondents in the NF type, and the larger percentage of respondents from smaller institutions in the NF type. (Gender and institutional size were not analyzed in this study.) A sharp contrast existed in the number and guality of comments provided by Sensing-Thinking (ST) and Intuitive-Thinking (NT) types, both of whom tended to write lengthy detailed comments elaborating on each statistic. Sensing-Feeling (SF) and Intuitive-Feeling (NF) types provided little or no comment on the Technical Services Statistics Form. The results of this research have implications for examining the technical services statistics collected in technical services units: the frequency of analysis; their importance for planning; the use of these statistics; and the level at which the statistic is used for decision making. Other implications pertain to the automation of statistical data and the use or non-use of the automated reports available.

The study investigated the impact of accreditation, a process of external quality assurance (EQA) on university libraries in Kenya. The study demonstrated that globalization and commercialization had affected higher education systems. An increasing emphasis was towards outcomes of higher education and evaluators were looking for new data and indicators that demonstrate that students have mastered specific objectives because of their education. The philosophy of pragmatism formed the basis of this study and the mixed research method was used for data collection. This study adopted a sequential mixed model design and data was collected in two phases. Questionnaires and interview survey methods were used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data for this study. A total of 27 (87%) of the 31 respondents from private and public universities completed and returned the questionnaires. Based on the findings from the questionnaire survey five heads of university libraries were interviewed. The findings of the study established that accreditation had made significant impacts on university libraries in Kenya. It was evident that the university librarians did not undertake self-assessment as a step prior to the accreditation visit. The standards used for evaluation of university libraries only covered inputs. The types of measures collected were only descriptive inputs of the libraries. From the findings, it was evident that there was no collection of statistics nationally. It was also evident from the findings that there were no specific performance indicators to facilitate self-assessment and benchmarking between university libraries.The study recommended that CHE should also advocate the use of self-evaluation in university libraries and evaluate university libraries based on evidence of normative practice, hence the need for revision of the standards. The standards should focus on outputs and outcomes of the library programs as primary indicators of quality. The study further recommended that university libraries in Kenya adopt the use of standardized instruments for data collection such as LibQual. In order to develop a culture of assessment in university libraries in Kenya the study recommended a performance evaluation model with a set of nine criteria including 26 indicators. / Information Science / D. Litt. (Information Science)

The shifting focus in the role of academic libraries entail a better understanding, awareness and responsiveness to the needs of the library users. In an environment of change and an age of accountability academic libraries have to determine and demonstrate the impact their resources and services are having on their institutional mission. Service quality is not based exclusively on the perception of the librarians, but also dependent on the perception of users. Only customers judge quality; all other judgments are essentially irrelevant" (Zeithaml, Parasuraman, Berry 1999). The reason of this study was to assess quality in the library and to determine the perceptions of the Vaal Triangle Campus Library users as they relate to quality service and to develop a model to improve service quality. The aim was to determine library users' minimum expectations for services, their desired level of service and then to identify the extent of service they currently perceive on three dimensions of service quality: affect of service, library as place and access to information. A triangulation, mixed method research methodology was employed in this study. Data was collected using focus group as well as individual interviews and the LibQUAL questionnaire. Purposive sampling was used to determine participants for the interviews while a total market survey was employed for the questionnaire respondents. Findings indicate that there is a gap between the users' expectations and perception of service quality. The results indicate that there are variations within the different user groups regarding the expectations and perceptions of service quality at the Vaal Triangle Campus library. In view of the findings, the study concluded by developing a service quality model based on Deming's PDCA cycle, the ISO model and the Hoshin Kanri process / Information Science / M. Inf.

The study investigated the impact of accreditation, a process of external quality assurance (EQA) on university libraries in Kenya. The study demonstrated that globalization and commercialization had affected higher education systems. An increasing emphasis was towards outcomes of higher education and evaluators were looking for new data and indicators that demonstrate that students have mastered specific objectives because of their education. The philosophy of pragmatism formed the basis of this study and the mixed research method was used for data collection. This study adopted a sequential mixed model design and data was collected in two phases. Questionnaires and interview survey methods were used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data for this study. A total of 27 (87%) of the 31 respondents from private and public universities completed and returned the questionnaires. Based on the findings from the questionnaire survey five heads of university libraries were interviewed. The findings of the study established that accreditation had made significant impacts on university libraries in Kenya. It was evident that the university librarians did not undertake self-assessment as a step prior to the accreditation visit. The standards used for evaluation of university libraries only covered inputs. The types of measures collected were only descriptive inputs of the libraries. From the findings, it was evident that there was no collection of statistics nationally. It was also evident from the findings that there were no specific performance indicators to facilitate self-assessment and benchmarking between university libraries.The study recommended that CHE should also advocate the use of self-evaluation in university libraries and evaluate university libraries based on evidence of normative practice, hence the need for revision of the standards. The standards should focus on outputs and outcomes of the library programs as primary indicators of quality. The study further recommended that university libraries in Kenya adopt the use of standardized instruments for data collection such as LibQual. In order to develop a culture of assessment in university libraries in Kenya the study recommended a performance evaluation model with a set of nine criteria including 26 indicators. / Information Science / D. Litt. (Information Science)

The shifting focus in the role of academic libraries entail a better understanding, awareness and responsiveness to the needs of the library users. In an environment of change and an age of accountability academic libraries have to determine and demonstrate the impact their resources and services are having on their institutional mission. Service quality is not based exclusively on the perception of the librarians, but also dependent on the perception of users. Only customers judge quality; all other judgments are essentially irrelevant" (Zeithaml, Parasuraman, Berry 1999). The reason of this study was to assess quality in the library and to determine the perceptions of the Vaal Triangle Campus Library users as they relate to quality service and to develop a model to improve service quality. The aim was to determine library users' minimum expectations for services, their desired level of service and then to identify the extent of service they currently perceive on three dimensions of service quality: affect of service, library as place and access to information. A triangulation, mixed method research methodology was employed in this study. Data was collected using focus group as well as individual interviews and the LibQUAL questionnaire. Purposive sampling was used to determine participants for the interviews while a total market survey was employed for the questionnaire respondents. Findings indicate that there is a gap between the users' expectations and perception of service quality. The results indicate that there are variations within the different user groups regarding the expectations and perceptions of service quality at the Vaal Triangle Campus library. In view of the findings, the study concluded by developing a service quality model based on Deming's PDCA cycle, the ISO model and the Hoshin Kanri process / Information Science / M. Inf.

This study focuses on the use of information resources and communication technologies, both traditional and electronic, by academic library directors. The purpose is to improve understanding of managerial behavior when using information resources and communication technologies within a shared information environment. Taylor's concept of an information use environment is used to capture the elements associated with information use and communication within the context of decision-making styles, managerial roles, organizational environments, and professional communities. This qualitative study uses interviews, observations, questionnaires, and documents. Library directors participating in the study are from doctoral-degree granting universities in the southwestern United States. Data collection involved on-site observations with a PDA (personal digital assistant), structured interviews with library directors and their administrative assistants, the Decision Style Inventory, and a questionnaire based on Mintzberg's managerial roles. Findings show the existence of a continuum in managerial activities between an Administrator and an Administrator/Academic as critical to understanding information use and communication patterns among library directors. There is a gap between self-perception of managerial activities and actual performance, a finding that would not have surfaced without the use of multiple methods. Other findings include the need for a technical ombudsman, a managerial-level position reporting to the library director; the importance of information management as an administrative responsibility; the importance of trust when evaluating information; and the importance of integrating information and communication across formats, time, and managerial activities.