A fairytale about

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A fairytale about 22 items and a box
presented by Martha Kyrillidou
19-20 January 2004 Glasgow, UK
old.libqual.org
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Relationships perceptions, service quality and
satisfaction
.only customers judge quality all other
judgments are essentially irrelevant Zeithaml,
Parasuraman, Berry. (1999). Delivering quality
service. NY The Free Press.
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Relationships perceptions, service quality and
satisfaction
Presentation by Parasuraman http//old.libqual.o
rg/documents/admin/Parsu.ppt
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The Association of Research Libraries
Mission Shaping and influencing forces affecting
the future of research libraries in the
process of scholarly communication. Members 1
23 major research libraries in North
America. Ratios 4 of the higher education
institutions providing 40 of the information
resources. Users 3 million students and
faculty served. Expenditures 2.48 billion
annually, 954 million for acquisitions of
which 20 is invested in access to electronic
resources.
www.arl.org
ASSOCIATION OF RESEARCH LIBRARIES
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The Problem of Assessment in Academic Libraries

• Traditional statistics emphasize inputs,
  expenditures, acquisitions, holdings, etc.
• National Rankings are often misleading
• No demonstrable relationship between expenditures
  and service quality
• The lack of metrics describing outcomes success
  from the users point of view

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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 applicablei.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
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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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ARL New Measures Projects

• Demonstration project for service effectiveness
  measures (LibQUAL?)
• Project to define usage measures for electronic
  information resources (E-Metrics Project)
• Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy
  Skills (SAILS) a joint development effort led by
  Kent State with IMLS funding
• Investigation of role libraries play in support
  of the research process
• Investigation of role libraries can play in
  campus learning outcomes activities
• Identification of cost-drivers and development of
  cost-benefit studies

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What is LibQUAL
LibQUAL is a suite of services that libraries
use to solicit, track, understand, and act upon
users opinions of service quality. The programs
centerpiece is a rigorously tested Web-based
survey bundled with local training that helps
libraries assess and improve library services.
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LibQUAL Project Goals

• Improvement of mechanisms and protocols for
  evaluating libraries
• Development of web-based tools for assessing
  library service quality
• Identification of best practices in providing
  library service
• Establishment of a Service Assessment Capability
  at ARL

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LibQUAL Outcomes

• Securing information that contributes
  meaningfully to planning and improvement efforts
  at a local level
• Providing analytical frameworks that
  institutional staff can apply without extensive
  training or assistance
• Helping decision-makers understand success of
  investments
• Finding useful inter-institutional comparisons

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LibQUAL Resources

• An ARL/Texas AM University joint
  developmental effort based on SERVQUAL.
• LibQUAL initially supported by a 3-year
  grant from the U.S. Department of Educations
  Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary
  Education (FIPSE)
• Initial project established an expert team,
  re-grounded SERVQUAL concepts, and designed
  survey methodology
• Survey conducted at over 400 libraries
  resulting in a data base of over half a million
  user responses
• NSF funded project to refocus LibQUAL on
  the National Science Digital Library (NSDL)

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Dimensions
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Library as Place
Presentation by Sarah Thomas Architecture as an
Asset for Community Building http//www.arl.org/a
rl/proceedings/142/thomas.html
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Information Control
Presentation by Fred Heath The Findings From
LibQUAL and Outsell Research Cross Checking for
Correlations http//www.arl.org/arl/proceedings/
142/heath.html
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Service Affect
Michelangelo Sistine Chapel Ceiling http//sun.
science.wayne.edu/mcogan/Humanities/Sistine/Panel
s/creation.html
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Library Values

• Library values are reflected in
• physical environment (Library as Space)
• warmth, empathy, reliability and assurance of
  library staff (Affect of Service)
• ability to control the information universe in an
  efficient way (Information Control)
• and are unifying and powerful forces for
• Overcoming language and cultural barriers
• Bridging the worlds of our users
• Improving library services
• Advancing the betterment of individuals and
  societies

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LibQUALTM Participants
Spring 2000
Spring 2001
Spring 2002
Spring 2003
Spring 2004
For More Information about Participants
Visit old.libqual.org
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In an Ocean of Information How do you Define and
Measure Library Service Quality?
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Strategies - Actions

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Think out of the box
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Sensitivity to context
If sensitivity to context is important in
benchmarking, these new studies will hopefully
confirm this both empirical and ethnographic
methods are necessary to disentangle potentially
erroneous assumptions and illuminate contextual
and cultural differences that affect both
expectations of library customers, and library
performance Rowena Cullen (IFLA, August 2003)
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In Conclusion

• LibQUAL methodology focuses on success from the
  users point of view (outcomes)
• LibQUAL demonstrates 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
• Lots of opportunities for using demographics to
  discern user behaviors

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