Accreditation

Well, I said yesterday that today was a big day for me....it was the end of a lot of preparation for the Accreditation visit to our Library! Every NHS Library gets visited by assessors every three years and our three years was up today!

A lot of work goes into preparing for this as we have to submit a workbook with lots of evidence about what we are doing and basically have to self assess ourselves and then the assessors visit and meet with the library staff, my line manager, the Chief Executive and some library users. They also get a tour of the Library and the chance to fire lots of questions at me!

It was a tiring and somewhat stressful day, but I am so glad that it is over. The way that it works is that at the end of the day they decide on what Stage Accreditation we should be awarded and then the official report with recommendations will get written and sent to us in about a months time.

Well, I am sure that you are now agog to hear what we got!? There are four stages to the accreditation:

0 - big fat failure
1 - basic accreditation - need improvement
2 - good accreditation with some areas of excellence
3 - excellent accreditation

I knew that we couldn't get a 3, but was hoping for a 2 and that's what we got!! I am so very very pleased, it is due to the hardwork of my staff and their support of me that we have been able to achieve this, so I am very proud of them. (Of course, I am proud of myself too!)