Project URL – http://www.libqual.org/

TM

An Introduction to LibQUAL+™

Amy Hoseth

Massachusetts LSTA Orientation Meeting

Boston, MA

October 21, 2005

Total Circulation

Note. M. Kyrillidou and M. Young. (2003).ARL Statistics 2002-03. Washington, D.C.: ARL, p.8.

Reference Transactions

Note. M. Kyrillidou and M. Young. (2003).ARL Statistics 2002-03. Washington, D.C.: ARL, p.8.

Assessment

“The difficulty lies in trying to find a single model or set of simple indicators that can be used by different institutions, and that will compare something across large groups that is by definition only locally applicable—i.e., how well a library meets the needs of its institution. Librarians have either made do with oversimplified national data or have undertaken customized local evaluations of effectiveness, but there has not been

devised an effective way to link the two.”

Sarah Pritchard, Library Trends, 1996

LibQUAL+™ Goals

Improve mechanisms and protocols for evaluating libraries

Develop Web-based tools for assessing library service quality

Identify best practices in providing library service Support libraries seeking to understand changes in user

behavior Assist libraries seeking to re-position library services in

today’s new environment

LibQUAL+™ Process

SERVQUAL dimensions served as a priori theoretical starting point

SERVQUAL originally created for use in the business sector

Multiple Methodsof Listening to Customers Transactional surveys* Mystery shopping New, declining, and lost-customer surveys Focus group interviews Customer advisory panels Service reviews Customer complaint, comment, and inquiry capture Total market surveys* Employee field reporting Employee surveys Service operating data capture*A SERVQUAL-type instrument is most suitable for these methodsA. Parasuraman. The SERVQUAL Model: Its Evolution And Current Status. (2000).

Paper presented at ARL Symposium on Measuring Service Quality, Washington, D.C.

PERCEPTIONS SERVICE

“….only customers judge quality;

all other judgments are essentially

irrelevant”

Zeithaml, Parasuraman, Berry. (1999). Delivering quality service. NY: The Free Press.

The LibQUAL+™ Premise

The Survey Over Time

2000 2001 2002 2003-200641 items 56 items 25 items 22 items

Affect of Service Affect of Service Service Affect Service Affect

Library as Place Library as Place Library as Place Library as Place

Reliability Reliability Personal ControlInformation Control

Provision of Physical Collections

Self-RelianceInformation Access

Access to Information

Access to Information

76 Interviews Conducted

York University University of Arizona Arizona State University of Connecticut University of Houston University of Kansas University of Minnesota University of Pennsylvania University of Washington Smithsonian Northwestern Medical

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Dimensions of Library ServiceQuality

Empathy

Ubiquity and Ease of Access

Comprehensive Collections

Reliability

Responsiveness

Symbol

Utilitarian space

Assurance

Formats

Timely access to resources

Physical location

Self-reliance Library as Place

LibraryServiceQuality

Model 1

?

Refuge

Affect of Service

Reliability

“You put a search on a book and it’s just gone; it’s not reacquired. … There’s more of a problem of lost books, of books that are gone and nobody knows why and nobody’s doing anything about it.”

Faculty member

Affect of Service

“I want to be treated with respect. I want you to be courteous, to look like you know what you are doing and enjoy what you are doing. … Don’t get into personal conversations when I am at the desk.”

Faculty member

Ubiquity of Access

“Over time my own library use has become increasingly electronic. So that the amount of time I actually spend in the library is getting smaller and the amount of time I spend at my desk on the web … is increasing.”

Faculty member

Comprehensive Collections“I think one of the things I love about academic

life in the United States is that as a culture…, we tend to appreciate the extraordinary importance of libraries in the life of the mind.”

Faculty member

Library as Place

“One of the cherished rituals is going up the steps and through the gorgeous doors of the library and heading up to the fifth floor to my study. … I have my books and I have six million volumes downstairs that are readily available to me in an open stack library.”

Faculty member

Library as Place

“I guess you’d call them satisfiers. As long as they are not negatives, they won’t be much of a factor. If they are negatives, they are a big factor.”

Faculty member

Library as Place

“The poorer your situation, the more you need the public spaces to work in. When I was an undergraduate, I spent most of my time in the library, just using it as a study space.”

Faculty member

Self-Reliance

“…first of all, I would turn to the best search engines that are out there. That’s not a person so much as an entity. In this sense, librarians are search engines [ just ] with a different interface.”

Faculty member

Self-Reliance

“By habit, I usually try to be self-sufficient. And I’ve found that I am actually fairly proficient. I usually find what I’m looking for eventually. So I personally tend to ask a librarian only as a last resort.”

Graduate student

LibQUAL+™ Core Questions(Year I) _____________________________________________________________________________ Factor_ ______ _ No. I II III IV Item Core _____________________________________________________________________________ 32 .84947 .12848 .24465 .13335 1 Willingness to help users 33 .80847 .13662 .25348 .14147 1 Giving users individual attention 7 .80757 .17881 .12781 .21125 1 Employees deal with users caring fashion 50 .79273 .19288 .18847 .12497 1 Employees who are consistently courteous 31 .77262 .16358 .26461 .20061 1 Employees have knowledge answer questions 5 .74072 .14754 .18453 .29624 1 Employees understand needs of users 3 .74052 .15102 .17296 .20793 1 Readiness to respond to users' questions 18 .71718 .19757 .18289 .26766 1 Employees who instill confidence in users 43 .62487 .22402 .29970 .28256 0 Dependability handling service problems   20 .16556 .87679 .11430 .16236 2 A haven for quiet and solitude 2 .17739 .83172 .08498 .13901 2 A meditative place 19 .22362 .83147 .14705 .22566 2 A contemplative environment 25 .16013 .80492 .18894 .16628 2 Space that facilitates quiet study 41 .20398 .80204 .17599 .20255 2 A place for reflection and creativity   37 .22528 .12353 .78405 .15466 * website enabling me locate info on my own 28 .19602 .09611 .75780 .13173 * elec resources accessible home or office 14 .33339 .16156 .60389 .31109 * access tools allow me find on my own 45 .30467 .23784 .59090 .28919 3 Modern equip me easily access info I need 17 .35390 .18467 .55690 .41864 * info easily accessible for independent use 29 .30136 .21018 .55341 .38474 4 Convenient access to library collections   11 .13494 .23183 .18868 .73636 3 Comprehensive print collections 39 .14894 .23743 .29367 .60350 3 Complete runs of journal titles 16 .29445 .19831 .22384 .60107 3 Interdisciplinary library needs addressed 9 .27782 .05333 .16331 .57866 4 Timely document delivery/interlibrary loan 8 .22850 .18484 .13137 .56343 0 Convenient business hours

Dimensions of Library ServiceQuality

Affect of Service

Empathy

Access to Information

Personal Control

Responsiveness

Symbol

Utilitarian space

Assurance

Scope

Timeliness

Convenience

Library as Place

Refuge

Modern Equipment

Convenience

Ease of Navigation

Reliability

LibraryServiceQuality

Model 2

Survey Instrument

The Value of QualitativePerspectives

“Only with in-depth, local, qualitative, ‘culture’ studies can libraries know and understand what compels some to remain as far away from the library as possible, while others refrain from engaging library staff in their own search for proficiency and self-reliance” (Lincoln, Y. “Insights into Library Services and Users from Qualitative Research.” Library & Information Science Research 24, Issue 1, 2002).

Cultural Perspective/Self-Reliance “If Foucault is correct that we in the West live in

surveilled societies, then what function does self-reliance serve? …The library user who wishes to navigate resources with as little help as possible seeks a kind of privacy from the surveillance of librarian help …Having found the relative anonymity of cyberspace and a virtual world, this self-reliant user now seeks the same independence and lack of surveillance in the text-based and digitized universe of information resources known as the library.” (Lincoln, p. 12).

Cultural Perspective/Library as Place “…It’s beyond the ease [with] which you can find

information, just because the library experience is something like Greece or Athens…” (Undergraduate)

“…The library needs to welcome them in. It needs to make them feel like this is a place where they can be in almost a haven, a refuge” (Business professor)

“Writing an undergraduate thesis with this big dome over his head…he felt really like a scholar” (Linguistics professor)

Cultural Perspective/Collections“In the physical [vs. virtual] reality, ‘texture’ has

become important. Density of collections becomes important, and, if collections are not complete, users want to know where they can find missing volumes, journal articles, and/or how swiftly interlibrary loan will work for them” (Lincoln, p. 11).

E-mail to SurveyAdministrators“A number of the [LibQUAL+™ survey] questions

asked to rate the library from low to high, with n/a if it doesn’t apply to me. The latter wasn’t clear, but there were a number of questions which implied what a library should be that I don’t agree with. For example, a number of questions asked whether the library was a ‘contemplative place’ or a ‘center for intellectual stimulation.’ I don’t think our library is, but I don’t want it to be, and I certainly wouldn’t want any scarce resources to be devoted to this.”

Communication to Webmaster

Service as Performance

“…as users have metamorphosed from penitents to self-reliant information surfers, the rules of engagement have changed. Service is not something dispensed; rather, it is enacted as an elaborate cultural ritual, the texture and fabric of which is changing in front of us. Service may now embody multiple overlays of meaning, many too dense for anything but an anthropological fieldwork study to uncover” (Lincoln, p. 15).

E-mail to SurveyAdministrators“Other questions implied that any good library staff would

‘empower’ me to find my own research. I don’t mean to sound snippish, but if I wanted to be ‘empowered’ to be able to find all my own research, I’d enroll in the outstanding school of library science here on campus. I thought the reason we bring in talented and trained librarians is so that we can efficiently divide labor, and I can remain dependent on them – unempowered, if you will, to assist me when I need it. (And let me assure you I AM dependent, and they ARE excellent in assisting me.)”

Communication to Webmaster

Dimensions of LibraryService Quality

Focus Group Follow-Up(at Texas A&M) Downward trend in scores on question,

“Employees have knowledge to answer user questions.”

What employees? “I asked for help in searching on the 1st floor of the annex. They said they aren’t trained in that…”

What knowledge? “Some just say, ‘I don’t know.’ Do you know who could tell me? I ask, and sometimes, they don’t know that either” (Crowley & Gilreath, p. 82-83).

The Box

Why the box is so important About 40% of participants provide open-ended

comments, and these are linked to demographics and quantitative data

Users elaborate the details of their concerns Users feel the need to be constructive in their

criticisms, and offer specific suggestions for action

Rapid Growth

Languages American English British English French Dutch Swedish

Consortia Each may create 5 local

questions to add to their survey

Types of Institutions Academic Health Sciences Academic Law Academic Military College or University Community College European Business Hospital Public State

Countries U.S., U.K., Canada, Ireland,

the Netherlands, Sweden, France, South Africa, Egypt, Australia

LibQUAL+™ Participants

12

43

164

316

206

240

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Participating Libraries

World LibQUAL+™ Survey

In Closing

LibQUAL+™ methodology focuses on success from the user’s point of view (outcomes)

Demonstrates that a Web-based survey can handle large numbers; users are willing to fill it out; and survey can be executed quickly with minimal expense

LibQUAL+™ requires limited local survey expertise and resources

Analysis available at local and inter-institutional levels Many opportunities for using demographics to discern

user behaviors

LibQUAL+™ Resources

LibQUAL+™ Website:http://www.libqual.org

Publications: http://www.libqual.org/publications

Events and Training: http://www.libqual.org/events

LibQUAL+™ Online Tutorial:http://www.libqual.org/Information/Tools/index.cfm

LibQUAL+™ Procedures Manual: http://www.libqual.org/Information/Manual/index.cfm