Project URL – TM LibQUAL+ ™ Introduction Seattle / London January, 2007 Presented by: Colleen Cook Bruce Thompson

Total Circulation Note. M. Kyrillidou and M. Young. (2003). ARL Statistics Washington, D.C.: ARL, p.8.

Reference Transactions Note. M. Kyrillidou and M. Young. (2003). ARL Statistics Washington, D.C.: ARL, p.8.

Assessment “The difficulty lies in trying to find a single model or set of simple indicators that can be used by different institutions, and that will compare something across large groups that is by definition only locally applicable— i.e., how well a library meets the needs of its institution. Librarians have either made do with oversimplified national data or have undertaken customized local evaluations of effectiveness, but there has not been devised an effective way to link the two.” Sarah Pritchard, Library Trends, 1996

Multiple Methods of Listening to Customers Transactional surveys* Mystery shopping New, declining, and lost-customer surveys Focus group interviews Customer advisory panels Service reviews Customer complaint, comment, and inquiry capture Total market surveys* Employee field reporting Employee surveys Service operating data capture *A SERVQUAL-type instrument is most suitable for these methods Note. A. Parasuraman. The SERVQUAL Model: Its Evolution And Current Status. (2000). Paper presented at ARL Symposium on Measuring Service Quality, Washington, D.C.

Participating Libraries World LibQUAL+™ Survey

Premises Three Seminal Quotations

PERCEPTIONS SERVICE “….only customers judge quality; all other judgments are essentially irrelevant” Note. Zeithaml, Parasuraman, Berry. (1999). Delivering quality service. NY: The Free Press. LibQUAL+ ™ Premise #1

LibQUAL+ ™ Premise #2 “Il est plus nécessaire d'étudier les hommes que les livres” —FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

“We only care about the things we measure.” --Bruce Thompson, CASLIN, 2006 LibQUAL+ ™ Premise #3

Extended GAPS Model Organizational Barriers to SQ Customers’ Assessment of SQ Poor Upward Communication Poor Horizontal Communication Poor Tech - Job Fit Perception of Infeasibility GAP 1 GAP 2 GAP 3 GAP 4 GAP 5 Reliability Responsiveness Assurance Empathy Tangibles

13 Libraries English LibQUAL+™ Version 4000 Respondents QUAL QUAN QUAL QUAN QUAL PURPOSE DATA ANALYSIS PRODUCT/RESULT Describe library environment; build theory of library service quality from user perspective Test LibQUAL+™ instrument Refine theory of service quality Refine LibQUAL+™ instrument Test LibQUAL+™ instrument Refine theory Unstructured interviews at 8 ARL institutions Web-delivered survey Unstructured interviews at Health Sciences and the Smithsonian libraries to survey administrators Web-delivered survey Focus groups Content analysis: (cards & Atlas TI) Reliability/validity analyses: Cronbachs Alpha, factor analysis, SEM, descriptive statistics Content analysis Reliability/validity analyses including Cronbachs Alpha, factor analysis, SEM, descriptive statistics Content analysis Vignette Re-tooling Iterative Emergent Libraries English, Dutch, Swedish, German LibQUAL+™ Versions 160,000 anticipated respondents LibQUAL+™ Project Case studies 1 Valid LibQUAL+™ protocol Scalable process Enhanced understanding of user-centered views of service quality in the library environment 2 Cultural perspective 3 Refined survey delivery process and theory of service quality 4 Refined LibQUAL+™ instrument 5 Local contextual understanding of LibQUAL+™ survey responses 6

“22 items” items56-items25-items22-items Affect of Service Service Affect ReliabilityLibrary as Place ReliabilityPersonal Control Information Control Provision of Physical Collections Self-Reliance Information Access Access to Information

Interpreting Service Quality Data Three Interpretation Frameworks

Benchmarking Against Peer Institutions --1,000,000 Users; 1,000 Institutions! NORMS! NORMS! NORMS! Interpretation Framework #1

Score Norms Norm Conversion Tables facilitate the interpretation of observed scores using norms created for a large and representative sample. LibQUAL+™ norms have been created at both the individual and institutional level

Institutional Norms for Perceived Means on 25 Core Questions Note: Thompson, B. LibQUAL+  Spring 2002 Selected Norms, (2002).

Benchmarking Against Self, Longitudinally “Nobody is more like me than me!” --Anonymous Interpretation Framework #2

Interpreting Perceived Scores Against Minimally-Acceptable and Desired Service Levels (i.e., “Zones of Tolerance”) Interpretation Framework #3

LibQUAL+ ™ Resources LibQUAL+™ Website: Publications: Events and Training: Gap Theory/Radargraph Introduction: LibQUAL+™ Procedures Manual: