LibQUAL Results » LibQUAL+: Surveying Perceptions of Library Service Quality

Updated: 03/12/03

The UCI Libraries will be conducting a major web-based survey of randomly selected faculty, students, and staff at UCI from April 7-28, 2003, to evaluate user perceptions of library service quality. LibQUAL+ is a web-based survey instrument that uses 25 core questions to measure library users' minimum, perceived, and desired levels of service quality in four key dimensions: Access to Information, Affect of Information, Library as Place, and Personal Control. The LibQUAL+ survey is part of a larger research project to develop and test innovative ways of assessing academic library service quality being conducted by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The 2003 LibQUAL+ survey will be conducted in 316 libraries across the nation.

If you have any questions or comments about the survey please contact Steve MacLeod survey@lib.uci.edu, Chair of the LibQUAL+ Project Team.

1. What is the LibQUAL+ survey?
2. Why is it important?
3. How will it benefit library users at UCI?
4. How and when is the UCI survey being conducted?
5. Will there be any special incentives for participating?
6. What survey instrument will be used?
7. Why are reminders sent to respondents who have already completed the survey?
8. Why do the discipline categories in the survey not match UCI's school/department structure?
9. Are the survey results confidential even though I was asked to provide an e-mail address for the incentive drawing?

1. What is the LibQUAL+ survey?

LibQUAL+ is a research and development project undertaken by ARL in collaboration with Texas A&M University and with financial support from the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) through September 2003. The UCI Libraries are collaborating with ARL, Texas A&M and other libraries in this research project. LibQUAL+ is defining and measuring library service quality across institutions and creating useful quality-assessment tools for libraries; it is one of the ARL New Measures Initiative projects, which seek to develop innovative ways for libraries to describe their contributions to their institutions. The goals of LibQUAL+ are:

• establish a library service quality assessment program at ARL;
• develop web-based tools for assessing library service quality;
• develop mechanisms and protocols for evaluating libraries; and
• identify best practices in providing library service.

Service quality has always been a value for libraries--LibQUAL+ provides a measure of that value. LibQUAL+ currently tests a tool for measuring library users' perceptions of service quality and identifies gaps between desired, perceived, and minimum expectations of service. The project will continue as an R&D endeavor through 2003, by which time it is anticipated that LibQUAL+ will evolve into an ongoing service quality assessment program at ARL.

2. Why is it important?

The UCI Libraries is a user-centered organization committed to constantly improving the information resources and services available to the UCI community. Instead of measuring available resources against some "ideal" collection, outcome measures help us understand how well the libraries at UCI meet users' needs. ARL members are interested in finding new measures that demonstrate efficiency and effectiveness rather than simply the size of a library's collections.

3. How will it benefit library users at UCI?

By using the LibQUAL+ instrument and initiating action based on the results of this survey, the UCI Libraries can be more responsive to users' needs and provide services that are better aligned with users' expectations. This survey will also allow libraries to compare their service quality with peer institutions and to develop benchmarks. Best practices will be identified across institutions.

4. How and when is the UCI survey being conducted?

A random sample of email addresses will be drawn. The sample will include 900 undergraduate students, 600 graduate students, 600 faculty members, and 600 UCI non-library staff. On Wednesday, April 2, 2003, the sample group will receive an email message from Gerald Munoff, University Librarian, announcing the upcoming survey. On Monday, April 7, 2003, they will receive a second message from him inviting them to participate in the survey and providing a link to the online survey instrument. During the three weeks of the survey, a weekly reminder notice will be sent to each person in the sample groups. Due to our commitment to confidentiality throughout this survey process, we will not able to identify those in the sample groups who have completed the survey. Therefore, the reminder notices will go to each person in the sample.

Participation in the survey is voluntary. Those who participate may skip questions, indicating that a question is not applicable to their experience. Those in the sample groups may refuse to participate or they may discontinue participation at any time without penalty.

The data for all participating institutions will be collected on secure servers located at the Texas A&M Library. Each response will be disaggregated as it reaches the server, and survey results will be reported back to the participating institutions as aggregate mean score data. Individual responses of participants will be wholly confidential, and e-mail addresses will be separated from the responses as the first step in their disaggregation.

5. Will there be any special incentives for participating?

There is no compensation per se for completing the survey, though incentives are being offered in an effort to ensure good response rates. On the last page of the survey, respondents may voluntarily include an email address, which will enter them in a drawing for the incentive awards. This information will be separated from the survey response and returned to the library. One national incentive award, a Palm Tungsten-T, will be awarded by the Association for Research Libraries (for additional information on this product see: http://www.palm.com/products/handhelds/tungsten-t/ . The UCI Libraries will also award two $250.00 gift certificates and ten $50.00 gift certificates to the UCI Bookstore. Award winners will be announced in early June and publicized in several campus venues.

6. What survey instrument will be used?

The LibQUAL+ survey is patterned after the SERVQUAL instrument developed by Leonard L. Berry (Distinguished Professor, Texas A&M University), A. Parasuraman, and Valarie A. Zeithaml. SERVQUAL is used extensively in private industry to measure service quality.

Respondents are asked to respond to 25 questions on three separate scales representing minimum acceptable, desired, and perceived levels of service. The questions measure levels of service quality in four key dimensions: Access to Information, Affect of Information, Library as Place, and Personal Control. The average time to complete the survey is 10 minutes. The questionnaire is straightforward and involves no deception or coercion. Potential respondents may elect not to proceed with the survey after reading the guarantees of confidentiality and privacy.

7. Why are reminders sent to respondents who have already completed the survey?

In general, reminders are sent because research indicates that the single highest predictor of response rates in web-based surveys is the number of contacts made, including reminders. (See: Cook, Heath, and Thompson, "A meta-analysis of response rates in web- or internet-based surveys", Educational and Psychological Measurement, v. 60, 2000, p.821-836.)

Reminders are sent to all respondents because all returns are confidential. Once a return is submitted online, its contents are disassociated from the respondent's email address. This provides maximum security, but precludes any differentiation of respondents versus non-respondents among the sample. Thus, everyone gets a reminder.

8. Why do the discipline categories in the survey not match UCI's school/department structure?

Because this is a multi-institution survey, discipline categories have been standardized for ease of comparison. This will assist with future benchmarking activities. UCI survey respondents should choose the discipline category that they feel most closely represents their affiliation. It is also important to answer the question asking which of the 3 UCI libraries the respondent primarily uses.

9. Are the survey results confidential even though I was asked to provide an e-mail address for the incentive drawing?

Although the network address and email address is captured, your privacy is protected in the following way. Email addresses are not saved with the responses, and once they are saved separately there is no way to link an individual’s responses to their email address. This process ensures confidentiality for those respondents entering the incentive drawings.

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