By Simon Ellis, Michael Heaney, Pierre Meunier and Roswitha Poll
Abstract:
When IFLA needed reliable data about libraries and their services worldwide, it became apparent that there are no such data. Therefore, the IFLA Section on Statistics and Evaluation, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) committee TC 46 SC 8 ‘Quality – statistics and performance evaluation’ have joined forces in order to develop and test a new set of statistics that might be used by libraries worldwide. The fi nal goal is that these statistics should be collected regularly on a national basis, so that there will be reliable and internationally comparable data of library services and library use.