All Professions…” said Sir Patrick “…are conspiracies against the Laity” (The Doctors Dilemma by George Bernard Shaw, Act 1). Most people would however still agree that medicine has been “The Greatest benefit to Mankind”

On a smaller scale, performance management methodologies can be regarded as either “a conspiracy against the laity” or “a great benefit”.

There are a number of them around. The Balanced Scorecard is one of the best-known. This has been through several iterations: the classical form however sets a number of targets or Key Performance Indicators (hence “Scorecard”) across a range of themes (hence “balanced”): so for example a library might set objectives relating to:

• Learning and Growth -  e.g. Assessment of  subject librarians by academics, staff turnover etc….

• Internal Processes – e.g Self-issue terminal utilisation, number of items bought but not loaned etc…

• Financial – e.g. Fines collected and waived etc…

• Customer – e.g. Footfall, borrower retention etc…

The Balanced Scorecard approach is used in libraries. Here for example is some material from the University of Virginia. Please do share your experience via comments if you have experience using the Balanced Scorecard approach in Library management