Total Quality Management in Academic Libraries – Best Practices

Abstract

Quality Management is one of the management challenges in libraries. The quality of the service provided makes the difference between academic libraries and other information service providers. There are a variety of quality management projects – mainly in public –libraries in Germany of which some will be introduced in this paper. Best practices in two academic libraries reveal how Total Quality Management (TQM) can be implemented and established in the day-to-day management of libraries successfully. A modern leadership style – for example the transformational leadership – is required for the implementation of Quality Management in a library becoming an effective strategic goal and a management philosophy.