Quality measurement and evaluation assumes great importance in modern libraries, as it brings immense benefits to the library as well as user community.iN uality should start from the acquisition section, which should be carried uniformly to circulation section

1. Charting Library Service Quality…
ARUN V R
S3 MLISc
ROLL No: 3

2. INTRODUCTION
• Quality measurement and evaluation assumes
great importance in modern libraries, as it brings
immense benefits to the library as well as user
community.
• According to Robinson, “Quality is meeting the
requirements of customer- now and in the
future.”
• Quality should start from the acquisition section,
which should be carried uniformly to circulation
section

3. Measuring Qualities of Library Services
The important measuring tools and techniques are:
• TQM (Total Quality Management)
• SERVQUAL
• LibQUAL

4. What is LibQUAL+®?
• LibQUAL+® is a suite of services that libraries
use to solicit, track, understand, and act upon
users' opinions of service quality.
• A tool, measuring users’ perception of service
quality and identifies gaps between desired,
perceived and minimum expectation of
services
• Services are offered to the library community
by the Association of Research Libraries
(ARL)

5. What is LibQUAL+®?
• In 1999, the A&M team proposed to ARL that
the TAMU team would develop this alternative
protocol, which the team subsequently named
"LibQUAL+®," and would give the protocol to
ARL for non-profit use in improving libraries.
• Includes the quantitative data yielded from the
22 core items and qualitative data provided by
users in the form of open-ended comments
("22 items and a comments box.“)

6. Goals of LibQUAL+®
• Foster a culture of excellence in providing
library service
• Help libraries better understand user
perceptions of library service quality
• Collect and interpret library user feedback
systematically over time

7. Goals of LibQUAL+®…
• Provide libraries with comparable assessment
information from peer institutions
• Identify best practices in library service
• Enhance library staff members' analytical
skills for interpreting and acting on data

8. The need for LibQUAL+®
• Underlying need to demonstrate our worth
• The reallocation of resources from traditional
services and functions
• Rapid shifts in information-seeking behavior
• Increasing user demands

9. How will LibQUAL+ Benefit a Library?
• Institutional data and reports that enable you to
assess whether the library services are meeting
user expectations
• Aggregate data and reports that allow you to
compare the library's performance with that of
peer institutions

10. How will LibQUAL+ Benefit a Library?
• Workshops designed specifically for
LibQUAL+ participants
• Access to an online library of LibQUAL+
research articles
• The opportunity to become part of a community
interested in developing excellence in library
services

11. How Does LibQUAL+ Benefit Library Users?
• Gives a chance to tell you where your services
need improvement so you can respond to and
better manage their expectations
• Can develop services that better meet the users'
expectations, by comparing library's data with
that of peer institutions
• Examining the practices of those libraries that
are evaluated highly by their users.

12. LibQUAL+ SURVEY
• The LibQUAL+ survey features 22 core questions
as well as an open ended comments box where
users can submit their feedback on library services
• For each core survey item, users indicate their
minimum service level, desired service level, and
perceived service performance
• The survey contains additional items that address
information literacy outcomes, library use, and
general satisfaction

13. LibQUAL+ SURVEY COMPOSITION
• 22 Core Questions
• Comments Box
• 5 Local Questions (optional)
• 5 Information Literacy Questions
• 3 General Satisfaction Questions
• Library Usage Patterns
• Demographics

14. LibQUAL+ SURVEY
• The 22 core survey items measure user
perceptions of service quality in three
dimensions
1. Information Control (8 items)
2. Affect of Service (9 items)
3. Library as Place (5 items)

15. Information Control
1. Making electronic resources accessible from
home or office
2. A library Web site that enables to locate
information on by own
3. Printed library materials needed for the work
4. Availability of electronic information resources

16. Information Control
5. Modern equipment for easy access of needed
information
6. Easy-to-use access tools which helps to find things by
own
7. Making information easily accessible for independent
use
8. Print and/or electronic journal collections required for
the work.

17. Affect of Service
1. Employees who instill confidence in users
2. Giving users individual attention
3. Employees who are consistently courteous
4. Readiness to respond to users' questions
5. Employees who have the knowledge to answer
user questions

18. Affect of Service
6. Employees who deal with users in a caring
fashion
7. Employees who understand the needs of their
users
8. Willingness to help users
9. Dependability in handling users' service problems

19. Library as Place
1. Library space that inspires study and learning
2. Quiet space for individual activities
3. A comfortable and inviting location
4. A gateway for study, learning, or research
5. Community space for group learning and group
study

20. Comments Box
• Can enter any comments about library services in
the box
– No character limit
– We can see results immediately
– Can be analyzed and coded
– About 50% of respondents use it
• Users feel the need to be constructive in their
criticisms, and offer specific suggestions for action

21. Local Questions
• Participants can choose 5 questions to add to
their survey
• Helping participants focus on local issues
• Maintaining standardisation for benchmarking
purposes

22. Information Literacy Questions
1. The library helps me stay abreast of developments in my
field(s) of interest.
2. The library aids my advancement in my academic
discipline.
3. The library enables me to be more efficient in my
academic pursuits.
4. The library helps me distinguish between trustworthy
and untrustworthy information.
5. The library provides me with the information skills I
need in my work or study.

23. General Satisfaction Questions
1. In general, I am satisfied with the way in which I
am treated at the library. [strongly disagree to
strongly agree]
2. In general, I am satisfied with library support for
my learning, research, and/or teaching needs.
[strongly disagree to strongly agree]
3. How would you rate the overall quality of the
service provided by the library? [extremely poor
to extremely good]

24. Library Usage Patterns
• How often do you use resources on library
premises?
• How often do you access library resources
through a library Web page?
• How often do you use Yahoo(TM), Google(TM),
or non-library gateways for information?

25. Demographics
• User group
• Discipline
• Age
• Gender

26. Survey Instrument
For the 22 core items LibQUAL+® asks users’ to rate their:
• Minimum service level: the number that represents the
minimum level of service that you would find acceptable
• Desired service level : the number that represents the
level of service that you personally want
• Perceived service performance : the number that
represents the level of service that you believe our library
currently provides

27. Survey Instrument

28. Survey Instrument
On the web - based survey form, users click on radio buttons to
indicate their answers for each questions

29. GAP SCORES
• To understand the gap scores, it helps to envision the
three number scores for each questions as point on
single line
• The space between desired and minimum scores is
called “zone of tolerance”

30. GAP SCORES
• There are two gap scores provided by the
LibQUAL+ survey.
• Service Superiority Gap Score
• Service Adequacy Gap Score

31. GAP SCORES
Service Superiority = Perceived - Desired

32. GAP SCORES
Service Adequacy = Perceived- Minimum

33. GAP SCORES
• The higher the service superiority and service
adequacy scores, the better the library’s
performance.
• In general, perceived scores tend to fall within
the zone of tolerance.
• They tend to be less than desired scores and
greater than minimum scores.

34. RADAR CHART
• Radar charts are a helpful way to summarize the 22
questions and 3 scales (minimum, desired, perceived).
• To create a radar chart score from individual user surveys
are combined to form one set of aggregate survey data.

35. RADAR CHART
• The scores are reported in the survey results
notebooks as a series of tables
• Areas between each of the mean scores on the
radar chart are color coded to highlight the
differences

36. RADAR CHART

37. RADAR CHART
• To create radar chart, these lines – each
representing one question – are laid out like
spokes on wheel.

38. RADAR CHART
• Questions from each of the three dimensions
are grouped together

39. RADAR CHART
On the radar chart, differences are highlighted in
color:
• Red: perceived score is less than the minimum score
• Blue: perceived score is greater than the minimum
score
• Yellow: perceived scores is less than the desired scores
• Green: perceived scores is greater than the desired
scores

40. RADAR CHART
• By looking the radar chart as a whole, one can gain an overall
understanding of users perceptions of service quality in a
library
• The color coded differences make it easy to identify areas
where improvements may be needed, or where you are already
meeting user expectations

41. BAR CHART
• Bar chart provides another way to look at aggregate survey
data
• Can easily identify the minimum, perceived and desired
data points

42. BAR CHART
• For most part, perceived scores fall within the zone of
tolerance
• It is possible for perceived scores to fall outside the
zone of tolerance

43. ADVANTAGES
• Offers a well designed, thoroughly Library-
focused, set of survey tools
• Cost-effectiveness
• Automated processing & fast delivery of results
• Opportunity to benchmark

44. ADVANTAGES
• Respectability and comparability (with others
and historically)
• Analysis available at local, national and inter-
institutional levels
• Provides data collection, analysis and
presentation tools

45. DISADVANTAGES
• Limited ability to focus on local issues
• User Group Demographics not customisable
• Question writing
• Requires a lot of staff time
• Design
• Administering
• Marketing
• Collating and Analysing

46. HOLIDAY CARD by LibQUAL+®

47. What's new

48. LibQUAL+® Lite
• In 2008, the ARL/Texas A&M research and
development team tested an alternative form of the
conventional LibQUAL+® survey, called
"LibQUAL+® Lite.“
• The Lite protocol uses item sampling methods to:
a. gather data on all 22 LibQUAL+® core
items, while
b. only requiring given individual users to
respond to a subset of the 22 core questions

49. LibQUAL+® Triads
• Third protocol option within the LibQUAL+® suite
(i.e., LibQUAL+® Long, LibQUAL+® Lite and
LibQUAL+® Triads
• Implemented to obtain library users granular ratings
of criteria for either desired or perceived library
service quality
• The protocol yields data on 6 LibQUAL+® core
items

50. CONCLUSION
• The library services have changed very fast in
the last twenty years.
• Electronic resources, networks and the World
Wide Web represent a large portion of the
library services
• It is very clear that librarians must use
management tools to run the library services
which help them to assess services, to make
decisions, to improve services and to achieve a
better quality.

51. REFERENCE
• Brophy, Peter. Measuring Library Performance: principles and
techniques. London: Facet Publishing, 2006.
• Thompson, Bruce. Cook ,Colleen. Heath, Fred M. "How many
Dimensions Does It Take to Measure Users’ Perceptions: a LibQUAL+
study." Libraries and the Academy (2001): 129-138.
• Thakuria, Pranjit Kumar. "CONCEPT OF QUALITY IN LIBRARY
SERVICES: an overview." 5th Convention PLANNER -2007.
Ahmedabad: INFLIBNET Centre, 2007.
• Dole, Wanda. "LibQUAL+® and the small academic library."
Performance Measurement and Metrics (2002): 85-95.
• LIBQUAL+®. 16 February 2012. 18 February 2012
<http://www.libqual.org/about/about_survey/tools>.