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22 items and a box
Martha Kyrillidou Association of Research
Libraries NELA Boston, MA September 28, 2004
old.libqual.org
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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 123 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.
ASSOCIATION OF RESEARCH LIBRARIES
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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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The Challenge of Assessment in Libraries

• Traditional statistics emphasize inputs,
  expenditures, acquisitions, holdings, etc.
• Helping funding agencies understand success of
  investment
• No demonstrable relationship between expenditures
  and service quality
• Lack of metrics describing outcomes success
  from the users point of view
• Need to redesign library services to better meet
  changing patterns of use
• Building the climate, tools, and skill set for
  library assessment

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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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• .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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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 the new environment

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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 a expert team,
  re-grounded SERVQUAL concepts, and designed
  survey methodology
• Survey conducted at over 500 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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22 items
2000 2001 2002 2003
41-items 56-items 25-items 22-items
Affect of Service Affect of Service Service Affect Service Affect
Reliability Library as Place Library as Place Library as Place
Library as Place Reliability Personal Control Information Control
Provision of Physical Collections Self-Reliance Information Access
Access to Information Access to Information
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Survey Structure Page 2(Detail View)
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Key to Radar Charts
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Key to Bar Charts
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LibQUAL 2004 Summary Colleges or
UniversitiesAmerican English
(n 69,449)
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LibQUAL Growth
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2004 LibQUAL Survey Activity
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LibQUAL 2004 by the Numbers
Num. of Institutions Completed Surveys Valid Surveys
Total Total 202 112,551 107,069
American English American English 169 86,195 81,852
College or University 121 74,660 70,839
Academic Law 23 4,244 4,160
Academic Health Sciences 12 4,077 3,761
Hospital 7 1,113 1,024
Community College 3 771 725
Family History 1 784 796
Smithsonian Institution 1 459 461
Public 1 87 86
British English British English 22 22,039 21,530
College or University 18 20,517 20,056
European Business 4 1,522 1,474
Swedish Swedish 5 3,034 2,430
Swedish English Swedish English 2 92 86
French Canadian French Canadian 1 458 442
Continental French Continental French 1 335 334
Dutch Dutch 1 328 329
Dutch English Dutch English 1 70 66
ARL ARL 57 33,035 31,494
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Rapid Growth in Other Areas

• 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, the Netherlands, Sweden,
  France, Australia

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The Box

• About 40 of participants provide open-ended
  comments, and these are linked to demographics
  and quantitative data.

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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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In Closing

• LibQUAL methodology focuses on success from the
  users 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

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Multiple methods

• 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 methods

Note. A. Parasuraman. The SERVQUAL Model Its
Evolution And Current Status. (2000). Paper
presented at ARL Symposium on Measuring Service
Quality, Washington, D.C.
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Discussion

• Understand how to interpret radar charts, bar
  charts, and identifying differences among user
  groups
• Identify immediate actions your library can take
  to improve the service quality scores
• Identify long-term actions that your library can
  take to improve library services

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Short-term actions

• Improve DD/ILL, scan articles
• Proxy servers, marketing, db of the month, report
  to faculty, communication, usability
• Other methods to talk/listen to users
• Publicize data and use of information
• Outreach/communication
• Share info with the staff
• Use library faculty communication channels

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LibQUAL Resources

• LibQUAL Website http//www.libqual.org
• Publications http//www.libqual.org/publication
  s
• Events and Training http//www.libqual.org/even
  ts
• LibQUAL Bibliography http//www.coe.tamu.edu/
  bthompson/servqbib
• LibQUAL Procedures Manual http//www.libqual.o
  rg/Information/Manual/index.cfm

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• Martha Kyrillidou
• Director
• ARL Statistics and Measurement Program
• martha_at_arl.org