Transcript Document
LibQUAL+ Surveying the Library’s Users Supervisor’s Meeting March 17, 2004 What is a library? It’s People Places Services Interactions The culture of assessment “Assessment efforts should not be concerned about valuing what can be measured, but instead about measuring what is valued." -A.W. Astin Choosing an assessment approach Survey questionnaires Focus groups Observations Interviews LibQUAL+ Developed by the Association of Research Libraries & Texas A&M University and based on a business model called SERVQUAL Identify the key elements that determine a customer’s satisfaction Adapt service quality measures to libraries Quantify results so that they can be compared over time and shared with other libraries LibQUAL+ Pilot at Texas A&M 2000-03 test the LibQUAL questionnaire at 400 academic and special libraries Collect a pool of responses large enough to demonstrate the validity of questions 2004 LibQUAL+ program standardizes questions and survey form LibQUAL+ Gathering user feedback 27 questions to measure 3 factors: The affect of service (e.g. empathy, responsiveness, assurance) The library as a physical space Information control (e.g. scope, timeliness, convenience, ease of use). General demographic information for each respondent LibQUAL+ at Chicago Some reasons to invest our time now on a user survey Assess the effect of recent library & university changes Learn more about user expectations Respond to SPG & SPG focus group suggestions Information for a new library director New Palevsky dormitory complex Science quadrangle construction Consolidated periodicals collection Compact shelving in Crerar, Law & JRL Computing clusters in libraries LibQUAL+ at Chicago January 2004 decision to use LibQUAL+ Form a survey team Identify pool of participants (to sample or not to sample?) Establish survey address and web page Select optional questions & pretest survey Communicate to library staff Announce LibQUAL+ to university community LibQUAL+ at Chicago April 12-May 3 survey period Invite selected participants & provide them with the web survey URL Respond to survey problems, bounced e-mail addresses, informational questions All survey responses are managed at the LibQUAL survey center in Texas All personal information is disaggregated from survey responses LibQUAL+ at Chicago Follow-up Analysis of LibQUAL+ results by LibQUAL + survey center provided in Summer User comments Printed reports Data Interactive web site with graphs & charts July ALA follow-up meeting LibQUAL+ at Chicago Follow-up Chicago activities Study reports and draw some preliminary conclusions Work with Library’s Assessment Group to communicate work to staff & user community Determine further local analysis needs In Summary Survey user expectations about the library with the LibQUAL+ standard survey Conduct survey Spring Quarter 2004 Assess, analyze and, communicate results Integrate LibQUAL+ information with other library assessment work For more information LibQUAL + at Chicago web site www.lib.uchicago.edu/staffweb/groups/libqual/ Contact the survey group survey @lib.uchicago.edu Survey team David Larsen Sheri Lewis Rebecca Starkey Andrea Twiss-Brooks Kathleen Zar Thanks Photographs Beverly Sperring & Barbara Kern Design and technical advice Diana Cole