Importance of ISO for library management

The Information Services Centre of the Industrial Technology Institute is holding a workshop on "Quality Management Systems for Libraries and Information Centres, with special reference to ISO 9001:2000,” from May 5 to 9.

The workshop will allow the organisation to share with other libraries their knowledge and invaluable experience gained during the process of obtaining certification to the standard. ISO tends to be associated solely with the manufacturing sector and not with service organizations, and certainly not libraries, however, the ISC hopes to showcase the value of this standard as a total management system that can be applied by any organization.

The first library to receive this particular certification, the ISC is the information arm of one of the leading multidisciplinary research institutes in Sri Lanka. Its focus on quality has led to a focus not only on improved, more efficient customer service but also an emphasis on continual improvement of the systems.