Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to give the details of the development of the health libraries standards in England during the last decade; to identify and analyse the main features and innovations of the new accreditation framework published last year to assess the quality of that type of library, comparing it with the previous accreditation programme, and to present its first results. Design/methodology/approach -This study is based on a comparative analysis between the two main health libraries' accreditation programmes developed in England (the Helicon checklist and the LQAF framework), reviewing the goals they intend to achieve, the methodology they propose and the structure and content of their standards. This analysis is built on a wide literature review, including mostly grey resources: technical standards and reports, newsletters, minutes of meetings, and briefings Findings -In the study, the main changes incorporated in the LQAF framework have been identified both at strategic, tactical and operational levels, delimiting the scope of the "360 degrees review" of the health libraries situation it aims. Besides, the main achievements since the LQAF appeared have been stated: the undertaken of the first National Baseline Assessments against the standards, whose results show the good fitness of English health libraries' services quality, and the creation of the Innovation Reward. The near future, however, raises some uncertainties prompted by a new revision of the standards. Originality/value -This is the first study about the new LQAF framework and it also provides the first comparison in the literature and a unique view of the main health libraries' national accreditation programmes in England.

unlike traditional approaches primarily relying on financial measures, the BSC evaluates whether an organization is moving towards its strategic goals from four different perspectives:financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth. It aims to balance longand short-term objectives, financial and non-financial measures, leading (performance drivers) and lagging (outcome measures) indicators and internal and external performance perspectives (Hepworth, 1998). First designed as a simple performance measurement framework, it has 2 evolved into a comprehensive management system that enables organizations to clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into action.Originally developed for the private for-profit sector, in order to bring about financial success, it was soon adopted by, and adapted to, public sector organizations as a system to achieve and communicate their effectiveness in serving the public. In 1999, Kaplan himself stated that the BSC was equally or even more appropriate for not-for-profit organizations: "Although the Balanced Scorecard has initially been applied to the for-profit (private) sector, its potential to improve the management of public-sector organizations is even greater" (Kaplan, 1999).However, when the BSC is applied to public organizations, the framework should be changed to capture their mission-driven nature, placing more emphasis on accountability and results in meeting user expectations for public services and products (Rohm, 2004). In that regard, the literature review developed by Greatbanks & Tapp (2007) on public sector performance measurement and the use of the BSC confirmed that its application in public and not-for-profit organizations is not readily transferable from the private sector, and some modifications and adjustments are necessary. Furthermore, they determined that the implementation process was more complex and difficult than in the private sector, owing to the multiplicity of customers and stakeholders and the disparate nature of public sector organizations. Finally, they concluded that those difficulties appear to be responsible for the reported lack of empirical evidence regarding BSC implementation within public and not-forprofit organizations.Thus, the present study about the use of the BSC in libraries can be located in this context of an expanding body of literature on BSC implementations in public and not-for-profit sector Taking that diagnosis as the starting point of our research and aware that the BSC is a relatively new concept in libraries which has not been thoroughly investigated, this paper aims, firstly, to analyse and trace the development of the BSC in libraries worldwide through the testimonies and experiences that have appeared in the literature during the last fifteen years;and secondly, to explore the use and impact of BSC implementation in libraries, surveying and providing evidence of the main characteristics and outcomes of BSC practice in these not-forprofit organizations. The development of the BSC in libr...

where she is chair of the Condor Group (Organizing and use of contents), which conducts research on knowledge organization, collections development, and usage of electronic journals. She teaches courses on authority control, knowledge organization, and scientific communication. She is the author of three monographs and co-author of another 10. In addition, she has around 60 articles in international and national journals. She has been head of 10 research projects and has participated in another 6.

We study the phenomenon of the big deal, a subscription model for scientific journals that emerged at the turn of the millennium aimed especially at library consortia, which were offered the opportunity to exponentially increase their access to scientific information, thus breaking the previous trend of continuous cuts to the collections of the periodicals available in libraries. Its strengths, the expansion of the availability of content, and its impact on the diversification of use and the productivity of researchers are presented herein. Likewise, its weaknesses are highlighted, such as the constant increase in prices and the finding of the concentration of use in a limited set of content. These disadvantages have led to questioning and resulted in the evaluation of big deals, a search for alternatives, and cancellations in times of crisis. In recent years, the latter have been linked to the perception that the cost–benefit balance of big deals has been altered by the proliferation of open-access content. Finally, we address the revision of the traditional big deal through transformative agreements where subscription costs are offset by publication costs, which are intended to be a mechanism to accelerate the transition to open access.