The Perceived Value of Public Services as a Prerequisite for a Comprehensive Analysis of the Effectiveness of Public Sector Organizations Using the Czech Library as an Example

At present, the efficiency of allocating funds from public budgets is an issue that is being increasingly debated in the public sector. Mainly, this is due to increasing debt but also to changes in the way public services are provided. Good decisions regarding allocations, however, are prevented by the inability to measure output volume and the benefits for consumers provided by various services. Outcomes of public libraries are benefits of a system or service producer to its users (Vakkari and Serola, Library Inf Sci Res 34(1):37–44, 2012). Their value is more complex in the public sector than in the private sector and can therefore be harder to measure (Bloch and Bugge, Struct Chang Econ Dyn 27:133–145, 2013). This paper provides evidence that it is possible to analyse the effectiveness in the public sector—which provides library services—of both providers (libraries) and individual components of the services. This can be done through the application of a methodology that allows the consumers themselves to determine the perceived value of the services being used. The result of the analysis of these selected services’ effectiveness at the biggest Czech library is a determination of its degree of effectiveness, which fluctuates around a value of one. The next step is to further divide individual standardized services into groups by whether they are effective or ineffective. A completely unique representative survey carried out in the Czech Republic in 2012 has been used throughout the analysis.