ILL User Surveys at Old Dominion University

1
ILL User Surveys at Old Dominion University

• Stuart Frazer
• Interlibrary Loan Librarian
• Perry Library, Old Dominion University
• Sfrazer_at_odu.edu

2
User surveys at ODU

• Quality Services Assessment Program began in 1995
• Users of each library unit surveyed every three
  years
• Program administered by the Library Services
  Committee
• Recommendations acted upon by library departments

3
Selecting ILL users for surveying

• Identify heavy ILL users (last survey n 324 /
  90 respondents)
• Include users from all institutional groups
• Faculty
• Staff
• Undergraduate Graduate Students
• Distance Learners
• Consider surveys qualitative rather than
  quantitative

4
Administering the survey

• ILL users are ideal candidates for email surveys
• Send the survey as an email to which the user can
  reply
• Poor results getting users to fill out Web-based
  surveys

5
Writing the survey

• Limit closed-ended questions
• Demographic characteristics
• Perception of staff
• Ease of request procedure
• Turnaround time
• Responses predictable and not very useful
• Include open-ended questions
• Allow users to set the agenda
• Provide the most useful information

6
Focus groups

• Groups of 8-12 interviewed through structured
  discussion
• Moderators from outside the library
• Questions open-ended to encourage discussion
• Challenges
• Need for outside help
• Cost
• Planning organizing

7
What do ODUs ILL users want?

• Staff to provide research support for
  difficult/problem requests
• Staff to provide maximum effort to acquire
  difficult items
• Detailed, personal explanations if material
  cannot be obtained (no form letters)

Failure on these points sends message that
library is not interested in supporting faculty
and graduate student research
8
Faculty comment

• mindset needs to change staff should think
  of themselves as our research assistants, and
  when they can't find something on the first try,
  they should keep looking, and when they still
  can't find it, they should tell us why instead of
  sending us a form that is very hard to interpret
  . . . as well as being coldly indifferent to our
  research needs

9
Graduate student comment

• It is fairly difficult to do research when
  confidence in the system is lost. I personally
  know many graduate students (and faculty) that
  refrain from using the service (ILL) at all due
  to the overwhelming number of sorry, try again
  responses . . . some mechanism should be in place
  to order/buy/purchase frequently requested
  sources. For instance, if a book is requested 2
  or 3 or more times then perhaps the library
  should own the source material

10
What else do users want?

• An inviting office environment
• Better Web-based request forms
• No form letters
• Better quality photocopies
• Better communication between ILL and collection
  development
• Better online information about the status of
  requests
• Better trained student workers

11
Changes

• Recognize how much information is not cataloged
  on OCLC
• Change mindset from interlibrary loan to
  information supply
• Learn how to obtain grey literature
• Work better with other library units like
  reference and collection development
• Never dead end a user

12
Final thoughts

• Be careful how you present findings to staff
• Create a sense of urgency without demoralizing
• Emphasize positive comments to balance critical
  ones
• Learn to love your critics