Small Task – Economic Value of Libraries

1. It is hard to measure the economic value of a library because so many of the benefits a library confers on a community are intangible ones and so are impossible to measure. How do you measure the benefit to children and their families from attending Toddler Time, or the benefit of a teenager being able to access the Internet free-of-charge to do their homework or the benefit of a blind person being able to access books on CD or someone being able to learn about vegetable gardening? You may be able to make approximate calculations on the amount of money individual customers save by getting books from the library rather than buying them but that is not the sum total of the benefit derived from libraries.
2. Some people believe that once everyone has access to the Internet they will be able to find online all the information they need so libraries will no longer have any value.
3. I had never considered that libraries might have a value for non-users. It seems that nonusers value the library for its possible future benefits for themselves and its benefits for others whilst library users value the library for the tangible benefits it is providing to them.
4. There are a number of purposes to performance evaluation:
a. Identification of superior and inferior achievers
b. Rewarding good performance
c. Improving employees performance
d. Improving organisational performance
e. Salary allocation
f. Decision making re promotion, disciplinary actions etc.
5. Performance evaluation can cause stress among staff members and may result in a decreased effectiveness and decreased morale. If team members are ranked this can have an adverse effect on the team as a whole. Staff members are unlikely to be honest about any problems they may be having if they think they will be penalised for this,
6. I have had 2 end-of-year performance appraisals and each year there have been several informal meetings to identify any issues and look at how I am going towards meeting my goals. I have found it to be a positive experience. My manager has been very complimentary about my work and I haven’t had any issues with the work or other staff members. Every staff member is treated as an individual – there is no ranking. I think I would feel differently if we were being ranked.