Effectiveness of digital library services as a basis for decision-making in public organizations

•Contingent valuation was applied to evaluate the benefits of digital library services.•The methodology allows comparison of the effectiveness of the different services provided.•The effectiveness of digital services at the MLP in 2012 was 4.02.•Digital services have the highest effectiveness of all services provided by the MLP.

In practise, public organizations often provide basic and widespread access to digital services to citizens and to varying degrees. For the effective use of public funds it is necessary for there to be an objective method for the assessment of the effectiveness of the public services (i.e. including digital services). A methodology that can analyse the effectiveness of the digital services provided by public organizations is proposed. The methodology was applied to the digital services provided by the Municipal Library of Prague (MLP). This methodology allows comparison of the effectiveness of the different services provided. This contributes to the effectiveness of the decisions of public representatives and overall social effectiveness of the digital services provided. The results show that the effectiveness of digital services (provided by remote access) at the MLP in 2012 is 4.02 (this means that each unit of financial investment brings benefits in the amount of 4.02 units). In contrast, digital services provided directly in the library have a very low effectiveness, i.e. 1:0.89, thus they are clearly ineffective. In addition, when compared to all the services that are provided, digital services have the highest effectiveness of all. The proposed methodology can therefore help economic decision-making but also to improve the quality and range of services. It can be used in other organizations and various public sectors.