Review Article
Are Best Practices Really Best? A Review of the
Best Practices Literature in Library and Information Studies
Jackie Druery
Head, Learning and Research Services
Queen’s University Library
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Email: drueryj@queensu.ca
Nancy McCormack
Librarian and Associate Professor of Law
Queen’s University Library
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Email: nm4@queensu.ca
Sharon Murphy
Head, Academic Services Division
Queen’s University Library
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Email: murphys@queensu.ca
Received: 08 July 2013 Accepted: 04
Nov. 2013
2013 Druery, McCormack, and Murphy.
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Abstract
Objective - The
term “best practice” appears often in library and information science
literature, yet, despite the frequency with which the term is used, there is
little discussion about what is meant by the term and how one can reliably
identify a best practice.
Methods – This
paper reviews 113 articles that identify and discuss best practices, in order
to determine how “best practices” are distinguished from other practices, and
whether these determinations are made on the basis of consistent and reliable
evidence. The review also takes into account definitions of the term to
discover if a common definition is used amongst authors.
Results – The
“evidence” upon which papers on “best practices” are based falls into one of
the following six categories: 1) opinion (n=18, 15%), 2) literature reviews
(n=13, 12%), 3) practices in the library in which the author works (n=19, 17%),
4) formal and informal qualitative and quantitative approaches (n=16, 14%), 5)
a combination of the aforementioned (i.e., combined approaches) (n=34, 30%),
and 6) “other” sources or approaches which are largely one of a kind (n=13,
12%). There is no widely shared or common definition of “best practices”
amongst the authors of these papers, and most papers (n=94, 83%) fail to define
the term at all. The number of papers was, for the most part, split evenly
amongst the six categories indicating that writers on the subject are basing
“best practices” assertions on a wide variety of sources and evidence.
Conclusions –
Library and information science literature on “best practices” is rarely based
on rigorous empirical methods of research and therefore is generally
unreliable. There is, in addition, no widely held understanding of what is
meant by the use of the term.
Introduction
It is generally agreed
that the term “best practice” grew out of the manufacturing industry’s interest
in and implementation of benchmarking. The process of benchmarking began in
earnest in the 1970s and increased in popularity in the 1980s during which time
companies became increasingly intent on discovering how they rated amongst
their competitors as well as on determining why some companies were more
successful than others in specific areas. Today, benchmarking is defined as, “the
process of identifying the best practice in relation to
products and processes, both within an industry and outside it, with the object
of using this as a guide and reference point for improving the practice of
one's own organization” (Law, 2009, “Benchmarking,” para. 1). “Best practice,” correspondingly, is defined as
“a practice that has been shown to produce superior performance,” and the
adoption of best practices is viewed as a mechanism for improving the
performance of a process, business unit, product, service, or entire
organization (Szwejczewski, 2011, “Best Practice”, para. 1).
Not surprisingly, the interest in benchmarking
and best practices is no longer confined to the manufacturing sector and the
term “best practices” has entered the vocabulary in a number of fields
including library and information science. Yet, despite the frequency with
which the term is used in library and information science literature, it is not
obvious that there is a standard or even a widely-shared meaning of the term
amongst the professionals who use it. Clearly, without an understanding in the
profession of what is meant when we use the term, there is some question about
how meaningful the body of “best practices” literature is and what insights may
be gleaned from it.
Problems of definition aside, there remains
the further problem of what constitutes solid evidence upon which to ground an
assertion that a process or practice is a best practice. By what means do we
determine that something is a best practice? Is “best practices” literature in
library and information science based on a particular type of evidence or are
its foundations as varied as definitions of the term itself? The question is
not merely academic — in our current political
context, which more than ever demands accountability and measurable outcomes,
it is clear that we must focus our attention on establishing meaningful ways to
evaluate our performance and work towards greater consistency and clarity in
our discourse.
Literature Review
While there is a considerable
amount of literature on “best practices” in a number of disciplines and
professions from the humanities to engineering, relatively few articles survey
the literature to explore how the claim that something is a “best practice” is
defined and determined across a specific discipline or profession. The study
and practice of organizational change, notably, is one area in which surveys of
the literature have been conducted to determine the basis for the claims of
“best practice.”
Hallencreutz and Turner (2011), for example, explored the literature of
organizational change to determine if consistent models and definitions had
been used to declare a process or practice a best practice. They surveyed 160
articles from the Emerald database of management literature that contained some
combination of the words organizational change and/or change management and
best practice. The authors concluded that “many popular management practices
labeled as best practices…are based on anecdotal evidence rather than empirical
data” (p. 65). Importantly, this work builds on a previous study in which the
authors determined that that no coherent models or definitions of best practice
in organizational change were to be found in the literature (Turner, Haley and Hallencreutz, 2009).
Reay, Berta and Kohn (2009) conducted a systemic review of the
literature — that of evidence-based management (EBMgt)
— and asked three questions: 1) is there a substantial literature concerning
the concept of EBMgt?, 2)
What is the quality of evidence (where it exists) for EBMgt?,
and, 3) is there evidence that EBMgt improves
organizational performance? These researchers reviewed 169 journal articles
written in English which were current up to 2008 and which were available using
electronic journal databases. Their study found that “a large number of
articles are published on the topic, but most provide encouragement to adopt EBMgt based on opinion and anecdotal evidence” (p. 5). They
were also surprised to find that there was almost no evidence presented in the
articles that EBMgt improves performance.
Simon (2011) conducted a
literature review of best practices in corporate libraries in the United
States. She found that “although there are many articles in the body of library
literature focusing on the importance of incorporating benchmarking and best
practices into practice, there is a distinct lack of case studies detailing
actual benchmarking/best practices experiences and there are no articles
proposing a set of generally accepted best practices for corporate libraries”
(p. 139). Simon speculated that the reason for this lies in the work of early
library theorists including Shera (1944), Wasserman
(1958) and Lancaster and Joncich (1977) who argued
that a set of standards could not be developed for special libraries because by
their very nature they are not homogeneous and therefore not natural or easy
candidates for standardization.
More studies exist across a
variety of disciplines which question the concept of best practice in a more
general way along with the lack of standardized models and definitions (for
examples see Sanwal, 2008; Reay,
Berta & Kohn, 2009; Wellstein & Kieser, 2011), and still others suggest models that could
be used to evaluate and determine that something is a best practice (for
examples see Bardach, 2003; Turner, Haley & Hallencreutz, 2009). While the full exploration of these
works across the spectrum of academic and other disciplines is beyond the scope
of this paper, what these studies make clear is that this paper is not the
first to question these ideas and, of course, that further research is
necessary in the field of library and information science to determine whether
any of the suggested models and/or definitions would be applicable to our own
services and processes.
Objectives
What is the extent to which best practices
library literature fails to define the term “best practices”? Do assertions made regarding best practices
rest less on detailed empirical studies and far more on opinion, individual
experience and anecdotal information? We wondered if the term “best practice”
would be interpreted in any one of a variety of ways including 1) practices
carried out by most organizations, 2) practices carried out by “successful”
organizations, 3) practices based on observation and experience, 4) practices
based on opinion alone, and, finally, 5) practices based on empirical research.
Our goals in this study were first, to
identify “best practices” library and information literature across all types
of libraries; second, to understand the evidence used by the writers of these
papers in declaring that a practice is a best practice; and, third, to
determine the extent to which there exists a common understanding of the term
“best practice” in the literature.
Methods
On February 5, 2013, the Library, Information
Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) database was searched for articles
with the words “best practice” or “best practices” in the title. We chose to
search the title field only, given the number of papers retrieved (more than
2,000) when a broader search using “best practice(s)” was run in the database.
LISTA, published by EBSCO, was selected for
several reasons. The first had to do with the amount of journal overlap amongst
library and information science databases and the sheer volume of papers we
expected to retrieve. By using one specific database covering “…librarianship,
classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online
information retrieval, information management and more” (LISTA, 2013) and
indexing “…more than 560 core journals, nearly 50 priority journals, and nearly
125 selective journals; plus books, research reports and proceedings” (LISTA,
2013), we expected to find the key papers central to the profession. The
database was also chosen because articles indexed extend back more than half a
century to the mid-1960s.
The search revealed 450 such titles. Brief
news items, book reviews, and calls for papers as well as cursory reports of
conference talks were then eliminated from this group. Papers
with subject keywords which were associated with papers we believed to be too
remote from those areas central to the profession were generally eliminated,
e.g., Computer and Software Stores, Freestanding Ambulatory Surgical and
Emergency Centers. No paper,
however, even those with one of the aforementioned subject headings, was
eliminated from the group until it had first been examined to ensure that it
was not a substantive paper dealing specifically with best practices in
libraries.
The remaining articles were reviewed to
determine if they dealt with best practices in libraries. Papers on best practices in medical libraries,
for example, were included but those in the practice of medicine itself were
not. Papers primarily about programming computer systems
and network optimization were, similarly, removed from the group. In addition,
publications by professional associations which merely announced the existence
of best practice guidelines developed by various associations were excluded
unless they proceeded to present the substance of those guidelines at some
length.
Using this method, 113 papers remained of the
450 originally retrieved. Each researcher read one third of the papers and
recorded whether “best practice” was defined by the author, and if defined, we
recorded the definition. The papers were then classified with respect to the
evidence used by these authors to determine a best practice, and like papers
were grouped together. Researchers then re-read their own and, often, each
other’s papers during this exercise.
The results of the classification exercise are
discussed below. All percentages are
rounded up or down to the nearest whole number.
Results
Categories of Best Practices within the
Library Literature
Best practices papers have been written on a
variety of subjects in the library and information science field, but even more
so in those areas central to the profession itself. Publications on the matters
of teaching and instruction made up the largest group at 21 (out of 113)
papers. This topic was followed by cataloguing and metadata (10 papers),
digital collections (9 papers), and reference (6 papers). Several categories
were tied at 5 papers each, including distance education, management and
leadership, multicultural services, and social media outreach. As Table 1
illustrates, the remainder of the best practices papers were spread thinly
amongst a variety of other subject categories
Our results also confirmed our sense that the
term “best practice” had indeed gained popularity in library discourse. Of the
113 papers we reviewed, the first instance of best practice in a title was in
one article published in 1997. In 2001 that number had tripled to 3; in 2006,
14 such articles were published and, by 2011, that number had grown to 17.
Approaches used in the LIS literature for
determining “best practices”
Papers were categorized according to the
approach used for determining the best practice, and were placed in one of the
following categories: 1) literature reviews, 2) practices derived from the
library in which the author works, 3) qualitative and quantitative research
approaches, 4) combined approaches, 5) opinion and 6) other. Most papers
involved initiatives in a single library rather than a comparison of services
or practices across libraries.
Figure 1 shows the percentage of the total
number of papers in each category. A discussion of each category follows.
1) Literature
Reviews
Thirteen papers (12%) consulted the literature
and used this information to determine that a process or practice constitutes a
best practice. Literature reviews were rarely systematic; where other published
papers declared that a particular method was a “best practice,” this was
accepted as being accurate. One of the few exceptions to this is the paper by
Shaw and Spink (2009), in which the authors attempted
to distinguish between the types of papers they consulted, noting that “twenty
three were identified as empirical papers, and sixteen were opinion pieces” (p.
192). This distinction is, at least, a first step towards pinpointing works
with reliable content.
The papers using literature reviews dealt with
a variety of topics including teaching (Saunders, 2002), protecting patrons’
confidentiality (Maji, 2007), managing organizational
diversity (Kreitz, 2008), cataloguing (Alexander,
2008), reference services (Meyer, 2008; Shaw & Spink,
2009), the history of “story time” (Albright, Delecki
& Hinkle, 2009), creating an online tutorial (Blummer
& Kritskaya, 2009), hiring processes (Shaffer,
2011), and integrating e-books into a collection (Blummer
& Kenton, 2012).
2) Practices
Derived From the Library in Which the Author Works
Nineteen papers (17%) in our review chose this
method to determine whether a practice was a “best practice.” Papers in this
category explained a system or a method used in the author’s library, discussed
why it seemed to work well, and declared it to be a “best practice” without any
empirical pre-and post-method evaluation. The category covered a variety of topics
including teaching (Campbell & Fyfe, 2002; Tempelmen-Kluit
& Ehrenberg, 2003), reference (Johnson, 2009), managing media centers
(“Best Practices for Managing,” 2001), weeding (Gushrowski,
2007), evaluating classroom teaching material (Johnson & Reynolds, 2007),
leadership skills (Choh, 2008), offering
multicultural library services (Crichton, 2008; Glass & Sheffield, 2008),
fostering library as place (Coonin, Williams &
Steiner, 2011) and more. As with a number of the papers based on literature
reviews, several papers in this category used the term “best practice” in the
title without any further reference to it in the article. Interestingly, not
one paper in this category defined the term.
Table 1
Best Practices Papers by Subject
|
Subject |
Number of Papers |
|
Teaching/ instruction |
21 |
|
Cataloguing and metadata |
10 |
|
Digital collections |
9 |
|
Reference |
6 |
|
Distance education |
5 |
|
Management and leadership |
5 |
|
Multicultural services |
5 |
|
Social media outreach |
5 |
|
Collection development |
4 |
|
Interlibrary loan |
4 |
|
Associations, library |
3 |
|
Media, managing |
3 |
|
Outreach programs |
3 |
|
Hiring |
2 |
|
Public relations |
2 |
|
Students with disabilities |
2 |
|
Websites, management/assessment |
2 |
|
Best practices, why they matter |
1 |
|
Citation management |
1 |
|
Construction projects |
1 |
|
Disaster recovery |
1 |
|
Email management |
1 |
|
Funding |
1 |
|
Friends of the library programming |
1 |
|
Impact, library services of |
1 |
|
Indexing |
1 |
|
Information Technology departments |
1 |
|
Laptop lending program |
1 |
|
Knowledgebase data transfer |
1 |
|
Protecting library patrons' confidentiality |
1 |
|
Preservation |
1 |
|
Story reading/telling |
1 |
|
Student achievement |
1 |
|
Student engagement |
1 |
|
Students, remedial |
1 |
|
Teams, working in |
1 |
|
Vendors, selection |
1 |
|
Weeding |
1 |
|
Wikis |
1 |
3) Empirical
Research (Qualitative and Quantitative)
Sixteen papers (14%) appeared in this
category. Most of the articles involved surveys and interviews with responses
collected through a variety of means including online and print questionnaires,
and interviews with specific people. One notable exception to this group dealt
with a pre- and post-measurement of library-instruction-learning in which
students filled out multiple-choice knowledge tests both before and after
library instruction (Stec, 2006). The purpose of this
study was to identify best practices in instruction by assessing student
learning with different instructor types and instruction methods.
Brown (1998) used surveys to identify best
practices in vendor-selection criteria. Hodge’s (2000) study of digital
archiving identified best practices using a survey of managers of select
projects. Cowen and Edson (2002) sent questionnaires to hospital librarians via
a listserv asking, among other things, about “successful techniques” for IT
collaboration and communication. Shelton’s (2003) study about cooperative
collection development pre-selected organizations already employing best
practice as indicated by “viability, track record and longevity” (p. 192) and
then surveyed them about conditions that either facilitated or worked against
that cooperation.
Clair’s (2012) study on the use of metadata
for web content management systems involved a survey to determine
responsibility for content, the workflows that managed it, the standards that
were in place, and the barriers which existed to using metadata in this
context. While the purpose, methodology, literature review and discussion of
results offered seemingly useful information, little evidence was provided to
support what made this information qualify as a best practice.
Figure 1
Percentage of each approach within the best
practices literature
Renner, Vardaman and
Norton (2007) administered an online survey to determine how health libraries
delivered services to distance learners. Although their discussion of the
results sought to relate practice to established Association of College &
Research Libraries (ACRL) guidelines, common practice, for the most part, was
deemed to be best practice.
Finally, in a departure from the survey
format, Butler (2009) solicited, analyzed, and compared twelve job descriptions
for interlibrary loan supervisors from different types of law libraries, and
used the results to provide a sample job description outlining “…the elements
that should be included, and the core functions and best practices described in
this article” (p. 30). Like many of the papers mentioned above, the practices
were determined to be best because they were common.
Papers based on such surveys, interviews, and
related methods were problematic because of the bias inherent in the research
design. For example, interviewees or survey participants were generally chosen
because they are in “cutting edge” programs (Hodge, 2000) or programs with a
reputation for success (Shelton, 2003). How “cutting edge” or “success” was
defined is unclear. In addition, common practices (which turned out most often
to be practices reported by those who responded to the survey) were simply
translated as best practices without any rigorous analyses of practices or the
designation. Similarly troubling, authors may have selected replies that they
deemed “useful,” and reported these as best practices (Cowen & Edson,
2002). The papers which fell into our next category, “Combined Approaches,” followed,
to various extents, these same problematic practices.
4)
Combined
Approaches
This category, in which authors use two or
more approaches to identify best practices, contained thirty-four papers (30%).
The two or more approaches most often consisted of a literature review and a
survey of other information professionals (Briscoe, Selden & Nyberg, 2003;
Buck, Islam & Syrkin, 2006; Farelly,
Fisher & Kurmann, 2006), or a literature review
and a description of how things were done in the author’s library (Benjes-Small, Dorner &
Schroeder, 2009; Boule, 2008; Wheeler, Johnson & Manion,
2008). Other approaches included a combination of literature and document
(project reports, procedures, policies) reviews (Mellinger
& Starmer, 2002), self-evaluation accompanied by
a survey (Bentley, 2006), or literature review, personal experience and a study
of practices at a small number of institutions (Hoffman & Ramin, 2010).
5) Opinion
Opinion pieces were generally one of two kinds
— those based on feelings or beliefs (discussed later in this paper), and those
based, in part, on how practices are carried out in a particular library.
Eighteen papers (15%) in this study were the product of opinion alone. These
articles covered a variety of topics, including outreach (Huwe,
2006), coaching staff (Will, 2006), public relations success (Postar, 2006), social software (Stephens, 2007), and
virtual reference (Perret, 2011). The papers in this
category were based on the author’s personal thoughts or opinions; in general,
few and often no sources were cited.
6)
Other
In this final category, thirteen papers (12%)
used an assortment of approaches (which did not fall under any of the
previously discussed groups) to identify best practices or to discuss best
practices as a general concept. These included self-studies (i.e., comparing a
current practice against library association guidelines) (Hunt & Birks,
2004), discussions about what best practices are, the issues surrounding the
adoption of them and the steps that libraries might take to implement them (Todaro, 2002) or why best practices matter (no particular
study involved), how librarians can apply them and how they can become
advocates to help others in their organizations to do the same (Leandri, 2005), and various reviews of library policies
(Thomas, 2007), protocols and standards (Kasprowski,
2008).
Definitions within the Best Practices
Literature
As Table 2 illustrates, only 20 of the 113
papers (17%) included in this study presented any definition of the term “best
practices;” indeed, in some, the term was used in the title only and never
appeared again in the text as though its meaning or its use in the title alone
is self-evident.
Of the papers that did attempt to define “best
practices,” what emerged was far from a common or shared definition.
Definitions included practices resulting in better results, standards drafted
by associations or organizations, criteria derived through benchmarking and
comparison with “successful” organizations, standards appropriate given the circumstances,
and practices which have been shown to lead to best outcomes. Samson (2011)
defines best practice as those meeting federal regulations.
Some authors relied on existing definitions
while other authors created their own. For the purposes of illustration, we
have included these definitions under the single most descriptive heading — see
Appendix.
Patricia Kreitz
(2008), relying on an existing definition, cited Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English which defines best
practices as “practices which are most
appropriate under the circumstances, esp. as considered acceptable or
regulated in business; techniques or methodologies that, through experience and
research, have reliably led to desired or optimum results” (p. 103). She noted,
however, that best practice literature too often relies on “brief case studies
or anecdotal stories to support the authors' assertions” and that the body of
empirical research is often too small to determine whether particular practices
will “produce desired or optimum results” (p. 103).
Table 2
Best Practices Papers Sorted by Approach
|
Approach |
Best Practice Defined |
Best Practice Not Defined |
Total Number of Papers |
|
Literature Reviews |
3 |
10 |
13 (12%) |
|
Practices from Author’s Library |
0 |
19 |
19 (17%) |
|
Qualitative and Quantitative
Approaches |
3 |
13 |
16 (14%) |
|
Combined Approaches |
9 |
25 |
34 (30%) |
|
Opinion |
2 |
16 |
18 (15%) |
|
Other |
3 |
10 |
13 (12%) |
|
|
20 (17%) |
93 (83%) |
113 (100%) |
Other definitions relied on “better results”
criteria include “highly effective or innovative operating procedures and
philosophies that produce outstanding performance when implemented” (Leon, DeWeese & Kochan, 2003, p.
420), or even “any procedure which, when properly applied, consistently yields
superior results” (Liu, 2004, p. 339). The latter definition is,
of course, particularly problematic in that phrases such as “any procedure,”
“properly applied” and “superior results” are themselves open to debate and
interpretation. In addition, they shed little light on what separates a better practice from one that is best.
A small number of definitions employ the
language of best. Davis (2009), for
example, defines best practices as “the best way of carrying out a function or
process” (p. 7). Best practices come about, the author reports, once one has
assessed internal needs and identified current practices, and then identified
alternate ways of doing things and modeled best practices on those alternate
methods. Comparing one’s operations to the competition is key
in order to see what can be used in one’s own operation.
For one other author, “best practices are
simply the best ways to perform a specific … function or process” (Leandri, 2005, p. 20). They bring about results desired by
the organization; others seek to emulate them, and the results are often
measurable. They also, according to this author, transcend boundaries,
which means that best practices in customer service in unrelated
industries or organizations (e.g., hotels or healthcare) can be employed in
others (libraries) with similar results. Hurst-Wahl (2009), in contrast,
defines the term as that which “has been determined to work well”. “In some
circles,” this author notes, “they are called traditions” (p. 22).
Shaw and Spink
(2009) cite Morin (2004) who suggests that “best practices and guidelines
outline a process, practice, or method that can improve effectiveness and
efficiency in several situations" (p. 193). A best practice, according to
Morin, becomes evident when applied to a specific task rather than larger or
more general areas. The term “best practices” is used in these papers as a
synonym for “tips” or “good ideas,” and this is borne out by Postar (2006) who writes, “…the term implies success; that
certain actions, attitudes, and programs are the most efficient and effective
way of doing business and that the same measures can be used with successful
outcomes in all similar organizations” (p. 12). What is “most efficient and
effective” for this author, can be derived from having seen, first hand,
certain ideas or principles which, when applied in various libraries, have
produced successful results.
As the definitions above indicate, these
authors are nowhere near a shared definition. Adding to the difficulty are
those papers which rely on existing literature as evidence of best practices,
particularly where articles consulted are treated as correct and authoritative
merely because they have been published. Virtually no discussion takes place on
why the papers selected should be deemed authoritative or reliable.
In addition to “best practices,” some authors
tackle the definition of benchmarking. Melo, Pires and Taveira (2008), for
example, cite Foot’s definition of benchmarking as “a process of measuring your
service’s processes and performance and systematically comparing them to the
performance of others in order to seek best practice” (p. 50). As we saw
earlier, best practices according to this view, arise from the measurement of
one’s own services and the subsequent comparison with the services of others.
Along the same lines, other authors define best practices as encompassing
“quality frameworks, benchmarking and performance measurement of products,
processes and services” (Farelly, Fisher & Kurmann, 2006, p. 7).
Finally, many authors do not define best
practice specifically but instead use terms such as “practices commonly
employed” (Albright, Delecki & Hinkle,
2009, p. 15), or “common practices...that appear to foster success in their
use” (Blummer & Kritskaya,
2009, p. 200) as synonyms for “best practices.” For these authors, literature
reviews and standards drafted by academic bodies seem to offer ideal evidence
for “current best practices.” It is also suggested that best practices may be
identified through “brainstorming” sessions (Campbell & Fyfe, 2002),
through newly introduced processes or practices which appear to be doing well
or which have garnered positive user responses (Buzzard, Teetor
& Travis, 2011); or through traditional practices that have been used
successfully for many years (Johnson, 2009).
Discussion
The limitations of this study have to do with the selection of papers.
The entire body of Library and Information Science literature was not included
— only those papers having to do with libraries and library services and
practices were included. Also, only one database was searched.
The findings of this research are similar to those of Hallencreutz and Turner (2011) and Reay,
Berta and Kohn (2009) who concluded in their studies of the literature of best
practice in organizational change, and evidence-based management, respectively,
that there were no consistent ways of determining a best practice, nor were
there consistent definitions in the literature. As with these previous studies,
many claims of best practice were based on opinion and anecdotal evidence.
Our theory that best practices papers in the library and information
science literature would be based far less on empirical data and far more on
opinion, individual experience and anecdotal information was borne out by this
study. Eighty-three percent of papers on the topic of best practices left the
term undefined, and those that did define the term did not agree on the
definition. As a result, “best practice” was used as a synonym for standards,
guidelines, good ideas, common practices, practices
derived through benchmarking, traditions, and recommended practices. This
research underscores the variation in definitions of this term. It also points
to the difficulty in building a body of literature around best practices when
our understanding of “best practices” ranges from “traditions” and good ideas
to the “most efficient and effective way of doing business.” (Postar, 2006, p.12)
Also
important in providing libraries with reliable evidence on best practices is
proper training — training
which should begin long before professionals reach the workplace. So, what does
this mean for library and information science (LIS) school curricula? Clearly,
more attention should be paid, during the education of LIS professions, to the
processes involved in the assessment of library services along with the
reliability of methods used. Likewise, suitable training requires a more
rigorous use of the vocabulary within the profession, so that, as a group, we
understand the difference between, say, a good idea, a better outcome, and a
best practice.
Some papers in this mix did attempt to adopt a more rigorous methodology by
describing a process or service, establishing goals for it, identifying at
least two methods of attaining those goals, conducting pre-and post-assessment
of the process or service when using those methods (Stec,
2006), and identifying methods that met benchmarked goals (Farrelly,
Fisher & Kurmann, 2006). These types of studies,
in theory, are those which should be most likely to provide libraries with
reliable evidence on best practices.
What does all this mean for practitioners
where this type of training has either been completely absent or, perhaps,
incomplete? Clearly, good ideas are shared in the library and information
literature, and we should continue to adopt and adapt those that are
transferable to our own organizations. At the same time, we must read the
literature with caution and ask ourselves the same questions that have been
asked in this paper. We need to look critically at anything that claims to be a
best practice before we attempt to implement or adapt it in our own library.
When we write about best practice we should ask ourselves whether the process
or practice is a best practice based on sound research or whether is it just a
“good idea,” that is, something that we do in our library that works for us.
The call is to place a moratorium on the term unless we truly have the evidence
to call what we do a “best practice.”
Future research in this area might include a similar study of best
practice guidelines developed by library associations. Stein (2008) in her
discussion of the IFLA Guidelines for
Best Practice for Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery outlines the
relatively rigorous process that was followed to develop the guidelines, and
she offers advice for implementing the guidelines in any individual library.
One could compare best practice guidelines issued by other library associations
to determine the process that was followed to develop such guidelines.
Questions one might ask could include: Is best practice defined, and if so, how
is it defined in these documents? Are there similarities and differences in the
practice used to develop the guidelines? Does the degree of rigour in
developing these guidelines differ between library services and processes? One
might also seek out and survey libraries which have followed such guidelines to
determine if implementing them not only improved service, introduced efficiencies
and/or increased impact but were, in fact, a best practice.
As Reay,
Berta and Kohn (2009) noted in their study of evidence-based management, more
research comparing and contrasting local efforts and their outcomes would help
to build a body of knowledge that could be transferable to other organizations
and situations. It is worthy of note that many of the services and processes
described in the papers discussed in this study are initiatives implemented in
a single library.
As a final consideration, it is
important to keep in mind that professionals are increasingly being asked to be
more accountable and to quantify and document the impact of services. As such, libraries of all types, more than
ever, must engage in a more rigorous assessment of services and programs using
sound assessment methodologies and techniques. Among the various outcomes would
be a larger body of literature, based in sound evidence, which reliably
documents and determines best practices in any one of a number of processes or
services.
Conclusion
Increasingly libraries are required by their
institutions and funding agencies not only to demonstrate return on investment
but also to provide reliable statistics and other evidence-based data. As such,
understanding what we mean when we use terms such as “best practices” and
increasing the rigour of our analysis is critical to our future.
At the same time, we should recognize the danger in assuming that
there is some universal yardstick for libraries’ practice. For example, applied
too rigidly given our complex and unique environments, a best practice might
stifle critical problem solving and creativity and, ironically, bring about
inferior results. It may reduce us to merely adopting a practice whose results
are not replicable in our own institutions. This is not to suggest, however,
that we abandon our search for best practices. Instead, it is to approach with
caution that which we conclude is “best,” and to remember, as one writer has
suggested, that we may, in our pursuit, be chasing a mirage (Liu, 2004).
Acknowledgement
An earlier abbreviated version of this paper was presented at the
EBLIP6 Conference, University of Salford, Manchester, UK, June
27-30, 2011.
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