New management systems, new skills for librarians: implementing a process-oriented management system at the Library of the University of Almeria (Spain)

Abstrakt

In recent years, European Universities have been immersed in the search for formulas that meet the requirements of new management systems, based on the rationalization and assessment of both economic and human resources. Nowadays, the adaptation to these goals is a constant in the implementation of different management models, contributing to suit the patrons’ needs to the new environment: continuous analysis of working procedures, updating of librarian competencies and adjustment of new organizational structures to new methodologies.

This paper presents a reflection about the changes that have taken place during the last decade at the Library of the University of Almeria (Spain), since the adoption of a process-oriented management system and the definition of the continuous assessment of working procedures. Concurrently, the abilities of the staff have been adjusted to the new situation, on the basis of the definition of the skills needed for the achievement of the library goals.

It is described how new library services have been implemented through the analysis of the patrons’ needs: the Research Support service, or the Services and Resources Assessment service, have been set up in order to make the library budget more effective and rational.

Librarians’ skills needed for these activities are analyzed, so the library staff can be appropriately trained, with the main objective of adjusting the Library goals, the librarian capabilities and the University needs through the performance evaluation of each position in this Service.