Ms. Jurow gave some background on the OMS Benchmarking Project. They are looking at the process, a certain amount of data is collected, but the primary focus is the process. As a result of the study, libraries can identify aspects that work better in some institutions, to use in helping them improve their own procedures. A question is to what degree can one benchmark beyond process. And what can numbers contribute to the evaluation of process.
Performance measures are useful inside and can be comparable outside.
ARL should develop carefully constructed, accurate tools and user satisfaction surveys for member library use. It is important to include non-library institutions and industries in the process of developing benchmarks. There are more professional managers in the higher echelons of university administration who want more objective information of this kind. ARL's traditional data are not as useful as when there is new money. Administrators want to know what we are doing better, how new technologies are being used to solve problems, etc.