Universidad de Alcalá

This Seal, which is only held by five other Spanish public universities, is awarded by the Excellence in Management Club (CEG) and the certification body Bureau Veritas, and is validated at European level by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). It was awarded in December 2015 and remains valid for 2 years.

New evaluation process
The UAH Library first obtained this award in 2011, although it has been subject to external assessments since 2009. Obtaining the European Seal of Excellence 400+ was the result of a new evaluation process carried out in 2014 and 2015.

The Library of UAH is now implementing the objectives in the Third Strategic Plan for 2015-2017, approved at the last meeting of the Library Commission, and has made the improvements requested by users in the last satisfaction survey, and is also addressing the challenges involved in incorporating the Library services into the Learning and Research Resource Centre (CRAI). Furthermore, it has just updated its website to make it more responsive (adapted to the devices used to access it) and intuitive (to facilitate access to the start menu from any section) and to include two new sections: 'Support for learning and teaching' and 'Support for research'.

According to statistics provided by the Director of the Library Service, Carmen Fernández-Galiano, the UAH libraries dealt with an average of 4,000 users per day in 2015. The centre with the most visitors is the CRAI, which has a 24-hour room open every day of the year. The loan service processed a total of 154,313 loans of documents and 17,531 laptop computers, and the website received nearly a million hits. Combined with its high quality of service, these figures for the Library have ratified its European Seal of Excellence 400+.