BERIO LIBRARY
THE QUALITY OF THE LIBRARY SERVICES
The path to the UNI EN ISO 9001:2000 certification
Quality assessing systems and the constant improvement
of the library services has been a specific interest both at national
and international level for some time.
Here are the stages of the complex path taken for a long time in the
area on several fronts: first the Services Charter, then the activation
of the customer care surveys and finally, in 2004, the important result
of getting the ISO 9001:2000 certification for only 3 processes and
its extension to all of them in 2008.
The Services Charter
The Services Charter was put into practice because it was acknowledged
that performances often were not adequate to the expenses faced for
the services and to the expectations and requests from the citizens.
The Services Charter was therefore used to introduce and/or reinforce
the idea of quality in the public, semi-public and private sectors
providing services to the citizens.
The City of Genoa has chosen to certify some of the best services
using the Charter in order to optimize the services themselves and
bring them to the attention of the citizens. At the same time the
City has taken on the challenging pledge to listen to its citizens
and to sign an agreement with them aiming at improving the services
according to the users' expectations.
The first Services Charter was published in 1996 and it pertained
School Foodservices.
The initial choice was to issue Charters for services already committed
on processes aiming at improving their performances, at the same time
it was agreed to sign a pact with the citizens for the same services.
The Library Service was among the first 6 sectors (today they are
11) to be chosen and it helped write a feasibility plan. Work began
in 2001. In May 2002 the first Services Charter of the Library System
was issued and it is deeply founded on those services considered basic
by the readers.
Together with the issuing of the Charters, the monitoring system started.
It aimed at assessing the development and the respect of the standards
and the pledges taken on.
Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Since 2002 the Council of Genoa has further developed its policy aiming
at the quality of services founding a Permanent Observatory on Perceived
Quality. The aim is to carry out deep and through Customer Care Satisfaction
Surveys using forms and focus groups. Libraries were the first services
where the method of the Observatory was applied.
This year surveys involving 6 different libraries of the City Library
System will be subject to evaluation through forms (which can be filled
in online and on site) and focus groups (De Amicis Library).
Citizens normally evaluate better than employees the quality of services
offered by the library and there are differences between an innovative
policy in the services and the users' sensibility which is more inclined
to a traditional offer.
UNI EN ISO 9001:2000 Certification
In 2004 the users oriented attitude of the Library System lead the
Berio City Library to achieving the UNI EN ISO 9001:2000 certification
for 3 processes: Loan, Cultural Events Organization and Bibliographic
Acquisitions. The sectors were chosen because they are particularly
relevant as far as users impact and transparency are concerned.
In 2008 the UNI EN ISO 9001:2000 certification has been extended to
the other processes of the Berio Library.
The process to reach compliance with the guidelines only used inner
resources. The work towards getting the certification and its acquisition
have had a positive influence on the inner work procedures and on
the concept of client oriented service. In the first case, duplicate
functions and bottle-necks were avoided as much as possible, thus
defining responsibilities and roles in a transparent way. In the second
case a constant dialogue between the readers and the library has been
promoted, using a system of complaints assessment and monitoring the
services in order to answer the needs expressed by the readers, for
example using a desiderata system. The same process and certification
has had a positive impact on the work atmosphere: a huge number of
employees has been involved in the process, they worked at writing
the papers aiming at simplifying inner procedures and at the same
time at sharing them.
At present the Library Department is working at extending the Managing
System for the Quality to the International Children's Library De
Amicis. The goal is to optimize the resources, to develop a more and
more user oriented service and finally develop transparent, efficient
and effective managing strategies.
21 ottobre 2009
