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1Project web site www.arl.org/libqual/
Evaluating Library Service Quality: Use of LibQUAL+
IATUL • Kansas City, MO • June 2002Julia Blixrud • Association of Research Libraries
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Opportunities and Pressures
• Increasing demand for libraries to demonstrate outcomes/impacts in areas of importance to institution
• Increasing pressure to maximize use of resources through benchmarking resulting in:– Cost savings– Reallocation
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The Problem of Assessment in Research Libraries
• The lack of metrics
• ARL Membership Criteria Index variables emphasize inputs, primarily expenditures
• No demonstrable relationship between expenditures and service quality
• To rise in the ARL Membership Criteria Index it is only necessary to spend more
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ARL New Measures Initiative
• Collaboration among member leaders with strong interest in this area
• Specific projects developed with different models for exploration
• Intent to make resulting tools and methodologies available to full membership and wider community
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LibQUAL+™ Description
LibQUAL+TM is a research and development project undertaken to define and measure library service quality across institutions and to create useful quality-assessment tools for local planning.
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LibQUAL+™ Project Goals
• Establishment of a library service quality assessment program at ARL
• Development of web-based tools for assessing library service quality
• Development of mechanisms and protocols for evaluating libraries
• Identification of best practices in providing library service
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Project Resources
LibQUAL+TM is an ARL/Texas A&M University joint effort. The project is supported in part by a 3-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE).
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Theory of Service Quality: SERVQUAL
•A. Parasuraman
•L. Berry
•V. Zeithaml
1985
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Relationships: Perceptions, Service Quality and Satisfaction
….only customers judge quality;all other judgments are essentiallyirrelevant”
Zeithaml, Parasuraman, Berry. (1999). Delivering quality service. NY: The Free Press.
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Survey Instrument
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LibQUAL+LibQUAL+TM TM ParticipantsParticipants
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Spring 2001Spring 2000 Spring 2002
12 Participants
43 Participants
164 Participants
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Dimensions of LibraryService Quality
Affect of Service
Empathy
Information Access
Personal Control
Responsiveness
Symbol
Utilitarian space
Assurance
Content/Scope
Timeliness
Convenience
Library as Place
LibraryServiceQuality
Refuge
Reliability
Ease of Navigation
Convenience
Modern Equipment
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Affect of Service
• Emerged as the dominant factor early in our work
• Absorbed several of the original SERVQUAL questions measuring Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy
• In the current analysis also includes Reliability
• The Human Dimension of Service Quality
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Library as Place
• Transcends the SERVQUAL dimension of Tangibles to include the idea of the library as the campus center of intellectual activity
• As long as physical facilities are adequate, library as place may not be an issue
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Personal Control
• How users want to interact with the modern library
• Personal control of the information universe in general and web navigation in particular
Access to Information
• Ubiquity of access: information delivered in the format, location and time of choice
• Comprehensive collections
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Project Deliverables
Print and web-based results include:– Aggregate Summaries – Demographics by Library– Item Summaries– Dimension Summaries– A copy of the survey instrument– Dimensions measured for survey
implementation
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Project Deliverables
Radar Graph
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Interpretation Frameworks
• Zone of tolerance
• Score norms
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Zone of Tolerance
• The area between minimally acceptable and desired service quality ratings
• Perception ratings ideally fall within the Zone of Tolerance
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Score Norms
• Norm Conversion Tables facilitate the interpretation of observed scores using norms created for a large and representative sample.
• LibQUAL+TM norms have been created at both the individual and institutional level
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Score Norms: An Example
1 9552 3 4 6 7 86.556.55
Only 27% ofall institutionsOnly 27% of
all institutions
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LibQUAL+™ Fundamental Contributions to the Measurement of Effective Delivery
of Library Services
• Shift the focus of assessment from mechanical expenditure-driven metrics to user-centered measures of quality
• Re-ground gap theory for the library sector, especially academic libraries
• Determine the degree to which information derived from local data can be generalized, providing much needed “best practices” information
• Demonstrate the efficacy of large-scale administration of user-centered assessment transparently across the web
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NSF Grant
• Assess service quality in digital libraries
• 3 year period
• Adopt LibQUAL+ instrument for use in the Science, Math, Engineering and Technology Education Digital Library community (NSDL)
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LibQUAL+TM Team
ARL
• Duane Webster
• Martha Kyrillidou
• Kaylyn Hipps
• Julia Blixrud
• Jonathan Sousa
• Consuella Waller
TAMU
• Fred Heath
• Colleen Cook
• Bruce Thompson
• Yvonna Lincoln
• Trey Thompson
• Julie Guidry
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LibQUAL+TM Related Documents
• LibQUAL+TM Web Site http://www.arl.org/libqual/
• LibQUAL+TM Bibliographyhttp://www.coe.tamu.edu/~bthompson/servqbib
• Survey Participants Procedures Manual
http://www.arl.org/libqual/procedure/lqmanual2.pdf
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