1Project web site www.arl.org/libqual/

Evaluating Library Service Quality: Use of LibQUAL+

IATUL • Kansas City, MO • June 2002Julia Blixrud • Association of Research Libraries

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Opportunities and Pressures

• Increasing demand for libraries to demonstrate outcomes/impacts in areas of importance to institution

• Increasing pressure to maximize use of resources through benchmarking resulting in:– Cost savings– Reallocation

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The Problem of Assessment in Research Libraries

• The lack of metrics

• ARL Membership Criteria Index variables emphasize inputs, primarily expenditures

• No demonstrable relationship between expenditures and service quality

• To rise in the ARL Membership Criteria Index it is only necessary to spend more

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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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LibQUAL+™ Description

LibQUAL+TM is a research and development project undertaken to define and measure library service quality across institutions and to create useful quality-assessment tools for local planning.

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LibQUAL+™ Project Goals

• Establishment of a library service quality assessment program at ARL

• Development of web-based tools for assessing library service quality

• Development of mechanisms and protocols for evaluating libraries

• Identification of best practices in providing library service

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Project Resources

LibQUAL+TM is an ARL/Texas A&M University joint effort. The project is supported in part by a 3-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE).

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Theory of Service Quality: SERVQUAL

•A. Parasuraman

•L. Berry

•V. Zeithaml

1985

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Relationships: Perceptions, Service Quality and Satisfaction

….only customers judge quality;all other judgments are essentiallyirrelevant”

Zeithaml, Parasuraman, Berry. (1999). Delivering quality service. NY: The Free Press.

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Survey Instrument

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LibQUAL+LibQUAL+TM TM ParticipantsParticipants

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Spring 2001Spring 2000 Spring 2002

12 Participants

43 Participants

164 Participants

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Dimensions of LibraryService Quality

Affect of Service

Empathy

Information Access

Personal Control

Responsiveness

Symbol

Utilitarian space

Assurance

Content/Scope

Timeliness

Convenience

Library as Place

LibraryServiceQuality

Refuge

Reliability

Ease of Navigation

Convenience

Modern Equipment

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Affect of Service

• Emerged as the dominant factor early in our work

• Absorbed several of the original SERVQUAL questions measuring Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy

• In the current analysis also includes Reliability

• The Human Dimension of Service Quality

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Library as Place

• Transcends the SERVQUAL dimension of Tangibles to include the idea of the library as the campus center of intellectual activity

• As long as physical facilities are adequate, library as place may not be an issue

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Personal Control

• How users want to interact with the modern library

• Personal control of the information universe in general and web navigation in particular

Access to Information

• Ubiquity of access: information delivered in the format, location and time of choice

• Comprehensive collections

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Project Deliverables

Print and web-based results include:– Aggregate Summaries – Demographics by Library– Item Summaries– Dimension Summaries– A copy of the survey instrument– Dimensions measured for survey

implementation

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Project Deliverables

Radar Graph

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Interpretation Frameworks

• Zone of tolerance

• Score norms

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Zone of Tolerance

• The area between minimally acceptable and desired service quality ratings

• Perception ratings ideally fall within the Zone of Tolerance

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Score Norms

• Norm Conversion Tables facilitate the interpretation of observed scores using norms created for a large and representative sample.

• LibQUAL+TM norms have been created at both the individual and institutional level

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Score Norms: An Example

1 9552 3 4 6 7 86.556.55

Only 27% ofall institutionsOnly 27% of

all institutions

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LibQUAL+™ Fundamental Contributions to the Measurement of Effective Delivery

of Library Services

• Shift the focus of assessment from mechanical expenditure-driven metrics to user-centered measures of quality

• Re-ground gap theory for the library sector, especially academic libraries

• Determine the degree to which information derived from local data can be generalized, providing much needed “best practices” information

• Demonstrate the efficacy of large-scale administration of user-centered assessment transparently across the web

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NSF Grant

• Assess service quality in digital libraries

• 3 year period

• Adopt LibQUAL+ instrument for use in the Science, Math, Engineering and Technology Education Digital Library community (NSDL)

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LibQUAL+TM Team

ARL

• Duane Webster

• Martha Kyrillidou

• Kaylyn Hipps

• Julia Blixrud

• Jonathan Sousa

• Consuella Waller

TAMU

• Fred Heath

• Colleen Cook

• Bruce Thompson

• Yvonna Lincoln

• Trey Thompson

• Julie Guidry

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LibQUAL+TM Related Documents

• LibQUAL+TM Web Site http://www.arl.org/libqual/

• LibQUAL+TM Bibliographyhttp://www.coe.tamu.edu/~bthompson/servqbib

• Survey Participants Procedures Manual

http://www.arl.org/libqual/procedure/lqmanual2.pdf