Students� Perception on Library Service Quality: A Qualitative Study of Iium Library

Abstract Objective – To explore the types and nature of assistance library customers are asking library staff for in a large Canadian urban public library system. Methods – A qualitative study employing transaction logging combined with embedded observation occurred for three-day sample periods at a selection of nine branches over the course of eight months. Staff recorded questions and interactions at service desks (in person, by phone, and electronically), as well as questions received during scheduled and non-scheduled provision of mobile reference service. In addition to recording interaction details and interaction medium, staff members were also asked to indicate briefly the process or resources used to resolve the interaction. Survey data were entered and coded through thematic analysis. Results – The survey collected 6,099 interactions between staff and library customers. Of those 6,099 interactions, 1,920 (31.48%) were coded as pertaining to technology help. Further analysis revealed significant library customer need for help with Internet workstations and printing. Conclusions – Technology help is a core customer need for Edmonton Public Library, with requests varying in complexity and sometimes resolved with instruction. The library’s Internet workstations and printing system presented critical usability challenges that drove technology help requests.

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Quantitative representation of perception and evaluation method for service quality in university library under 4-D space

Library Hi Tech ◽

10.1108/lht-09-2018-0121 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Jingyi Wang ◽

Run Yuan ◽

Hongwei Shi

Keyword(s):

Service Quality ◽

Evaluation System ◽

Evaluation Methods ◽

University Libraries ◽

Library Service ◽

Content Type ◽

Foreign Countries ◽

Library Evaluation ◽

Evaluation Parameters

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the service quality of university library more accurately and dynamically and improve the service efficiency of library. The paper realizes quantified representation of library service quality and overcomes the shortcoming of the traditional library evaluation system, which does not consider reader’s identity and cannot be evaluated separately. In addition, according to the function configuration of each department of library, a relation between library evaluation parameter and its organization structure is built. According to the evaluation results and the chain of relations, some suggestions for improving library service can be put forward; thus, it can improve the quality of library service and management efficiency. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, a four-dimensional (4-D) representation method is put forward to express four kinds of parameters, namely, the category of participants, the number of people evaluated, the rating level and the weight of parameters, which is expressed by chromaticity and a three-dimensional column coordinate space. Considering the existing evaluation methods such as LibQUAL+TM, the content of evaluation parameters, the grade of evaluation parameters and the weight of evaluation parameters are modified. Using the volume and the equivalent number of people under this evaluation system, the evaluation grade can be quantified and the total results can be evaluated quantitatively. Findings The evaluation model proposed in this paper is a 4-D system that is based on content parameters to evaluate the number of participants, score segments, evaluation content weights and reader information. It gives full consideration to the good advice of many scholars and combines the actual operation of domestic libraries. The situation effectively integrates successful experience abroad. Both the undergraduate and teacher sampling evaluation results and their analysis in this paper show the accuracy and credibility of the method. Originality/value Although the satisfaction index model has a good effect in foreign countries, taking into account that readers of university libraries in China are different from those in foreign countries in the evaluation methods of the tutorial, professional multi-level evaluation will produce greater errors in practical applications. The traditional four-level method based on Chinese education evaluation (excellent, good, pass and fail) has reached consensus among teachers and students in practical application, and it is easy to achieve consistency. Therefore, this paper also adopts four-level evaluation, that is, very satisfied, satisfied, generally satisfied and very dissatisfied. The embedded application will be able to perform dynamic evaluation and thus can be used in China. The evaluation of service quality in university libraries provides an effective new method.

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