University library benchmarking: An international comparison using data envelopment analysis

This paper proposes a framework for assessing the technical efficiency of 118 university libraries from Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Switzerland and the United States. The flexible non-parametric approach of data envelopment analysis has been chosen to analyse the performance differentials of university libraries. We also investigate whether the institutional settings affect the degree of library efficiency. The findings of the intercountry efficiency comparison revealed that almost one-third of the university libraries are technically efficient. Using environment-specific frontiers to distinguish differences in managerial efficiency from differences in environmental efficiency, we found considerable differences in technical efficiency between European and non-European university libraries. However, as regards the environmental setting, the non-European best-practice frontier outperforms the European best-practice frontier.