LibQual+ Spring 2008 results
and recommendations
Library Assessment Working Group
11/19/2008
Library Faculty Meeting
What is LibQual+ ?
• Measures levels of user satisfaction
• Asks not just “how are we doing?” but
“what do you expect us to do?”
• Developed by ARL. In use since 2000.
• We previously did LibQual in 2001
Spring 2008 survey
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Administered during March 2008
All faculty and staff
Sample of students (grad and undergrad)
740 responses
Next time – LibQual Lite.
Respondent characteristics
• Physical and virtual library use
• What is our % return? (800s? How does
this compare to ARL composite. Higher
return to 2001.)
How full is the cup?
What I’d like
What I’ll accept
What I perceive
I’ve received
A negative adequacy gap is a hole
in the bottom of the cup
Where are we superior?
• There is nowhere that we surpass use
expectations.
• This is the case for the ARL aggregate
population as well
• The places where we are doing the best*:
– Group study space, individual study space
– Staff who are ready and willing to help and provide
individual attention
– Deal with users in a caring manner
*about half-way to desired level of service
Where are our adequacy gaps?
• Information Control:
– Easy-to-use access tools that allow me to find things
on my own (graduate students and faculty)
– Print and/or electronic journal collections I require for
my work (graduate students)
– A library Web site enabling me to locate information
on my own (faculty)
– All of Information Control is a negative gap for faculty
(except for equipment), with the biggest concerns the
library website and tools for finding information.
Information Control
• Information Control = Access to information,
collections, website, equipment
• Expectations highest in this area for all
respondents
• How much can we expect people to know?
• Undergraduates = highest satisfaction in this
area. Represents different needs and different
way of using information across user groups?
• Responses for availability of print and
accessibility of electronic remotely were the
same from faculty (-0.12)
Affect of Service
• Affect of Service = Public Service qualities
• Results very different across user groups, what
is the biggest superiority (smallest adequacy
mean) gap for some is the smallest for others.
• Employees who have the knowledge to answer
user questions (faculty=biggest gap,
graduate=smallest gap)
• Undergraduates’ desires were least met in the
area of “Employees who are consistently
courteous”
• Improved from 2001.
Library as Place
• Undergraduates are the most frequent
users of the physical library
• Overall area of lowest minimums and
lowest desired levels, but it is an important
area with undergraduates, this is off-set by
the comparatively low desires of faculty
• Variation may also be due to which
libraries respondents are using?
Information Literacy
• Users relatively positive in agreement that the
library helps them succeed and be efficient in
their work.
• Lowest levels of agreement relate to the library
assisting in information skill development and in
helping distinguish trustworthy vs untrustworthy
information.
• May need to increase efforts on critical thinking.
(of librarians reporting library instruction, only
33% of sessions teach evaluation of information)
Library Staff
• Affect of service – “instill confidence in
users” only negative in this area
• High expectations in Information Control
– Library staff expected more from our
collections and equipment
– Particularly large gap with print resources
– Greatest patron concerns: access
• Library as place a huge issue for our staff
How do we compare to other ARL
libraries?
• Overall shape of our responses is the
same – our users’ high expectations are in
the same areas as other libraries
• The ARL aggregate for 2007 surveys
contained no red and no green
• Our margins of satisfaction are smaller:
closer to minimum expectations than to
desired
Improvements from past surveys
Library staff responses are more positive
in most areas compared to 2001
Reliability (negative gap in 2001)
Some facilities; a lot of variance in these
responses
Recommendations
• Information Control:
– Use recommendations and results from other
surveys: website usability survey
– Examine proliferation of tools, do we
undermine cohesiveness, cause confusion?
• Affect of Service
– Continue with staff training for improved
service and knowledge
– Increased need for training with NSM?
Recommendations
• Library as Place
– More outlets and scanners
– More easily comprehensible hours
– Follow-up study to learn what users want from
the space during longer hours
• General
– Improvement requires wide participation
– Need ways to measure progress