Time allocation, importance of activities and staff profi le in academic libraries from a business processes standpoint

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate, from the business processes standpoint, the time allocated by academic libraries in their different activities, the importance attributed by their managers to the activities performed, and the staff profile. Academic libraries have an important role in providing the informational needs of teaching and research, through its functions of formation and development of collections, bibliographic control, information delivery and management. The process management collaborates to the achievement of the organization strategic goals. It is considered a system of activities integrated in business processes, which may be an excellent tool for evaluating and implementing improvements in academic libraries. To fulfill their role, the libraries of Brazilian higher education institutions have a workforce composed of two profiles: librarians and non-librarians. The survey is bibliographical, descriptive and qualitative. The sample consists of 14 libraries of a federal institution of higher education. The activities inherent to the libraries were structured in processes and sub processes, and the percentage of time spent in them, their importance and the profile of the executing agents involved were determined. As a result, time, importance, and profile data were linked to the processes and sub processes, in order to investigate their association.

Keywords
Library assistants; Librarians; Academic libraries; Workflow management; Library management; Library services