Qualitative and Quantitative Methods (QQM) are proved more and more popular tools for Librarians, because of their usefulness to the everyday professional life. QQM aim to the assessment and improvement of the services, to the measurement of the functional effectiveness and efficiency. QQM are the mean to make decisions on fund allocation and financial alternatives. Librarians use also QQM in order to determine why and when their users appreciate their services. This is the start point of the innovation involvement and the ongoing procedure of the excellent performance. Systematic development of quality management in libraries requires a detailed framework, including the quality management standards, the measurement indicators, the self-appraisal schedules and the operational rules.
These standards are practice-oriented tools and a benchmarking result. Their basic function is to express responsibly the customer (library user) -supplier (library services) relationship and provide a systematic approach to the continuous change onto excellence. The indoor and outdoor relationships of libraries are dependent of their communication and marketing capabilities, challenges, opportunities and implementation programmes. www.maich.gr
