El aseguramiento de la calidad en las bibliotecas universitarias

Abstract

It deals with quality assurance in university libraries based on the regulations of the National Commission for University Evaluation and Accreditation (CONEAU) of Argentina. The institutional evaluation of a university includes two instances: 1) the institutional self-evaluation in charge of the university institution, and 2) the external evaluation in charge of CONEAU. This process is defined in Article 44 of Argentina's Higher Education Law (Law 24,521). Since 1997, external evaluations have been implemented for Argentine university institutions. Until December 2015, 109 external evaluations were carried out for a total of 86 university institutions. About the issue of quality in higher education, it is important to give an account to the citizens of the factors or variables that affect and intervene in the educational process and its results. Thus, university libraries acquire institutional visibility before external academic evaluation and accreditation bodies, which requires updated standards regarding the quality of the services they offer. CONEAU's evaluation criteria for libraries and documentation centres are described. The paper proposes the application of standards as a fundamental tool to analyze the variables of each library, such as time, quality, quantity and cost indicators, having a set of basic criteria for planning and decision making, which will collaborate with a better management of library services. As a proposed model, the standards of the Library System of the University of Buenos Aires are described.