The productivity of main services of city libraries: Using the example from the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic

Abstract

The evaluation of productivity of main services of city libraries using the example of 48 large public libraries and 44 small public libraries from the Czech and the Slovak Republic was performed according to the decomposition of the input-oriented Malmquist index (MI). The results of MI achieved are evaluated using a confidence interval and the bootstrap method. The productivity of main services of public libraries was studied for the year 2016 in comparison with the year 2012. On average, small as well as large libraries exhibit a statistically significant decline in productivity. The average value of the MI of small libraries is 1.29. The average value of the MI of large libraries is 1.16. The deterioration of productivity was caused by lower efficiency of the inputs. The small as well as the large libraries on average exhibit a comparable level of productivity in both studied years. This conclusion is the same for the Czech and for the Slovak libraries as well as for all libraries together. The Czech libraries, when compared with the Slovak ones, achieve better results in terms of productivity. The higher productivity of the Czech libraries in comparison with the Slovak ones is caused by the improvement of efficiency of the inputs, not by the technological changes.