Assessment and Accountability at Toledo-Lucas County Public Library

Toledo-Lucas County Public Library is, by all accounts, a unique public library. Located in an area of decreasing population and rising unemployment, use of the county-wide system is at an all-time high. In a county with only 462,361 residents, T-LCPL circulated 5,849,356 items in 1991, an average of 12.7 items per capita. This figure puts the library system in the top 10% of the nation. But will the library continue its apparent success story with threatened operating budget cuts and a recently failed bond levy? This article purports to answer that question by examining how the library system monitors itself and its standing in the community, and, perhaps more importantly, how the library system prepares its workforce to provide quality assistance to the general public. The article will discuss citizens surveys of the past ten years, usage statistics now readily available through computer programs, and in-house studies undertaken periodically to determine the quality of reference service. Secondly, the a...