Users' Perceptions of Library Service Quality: A LibQUAL+ Qualitative Study

SERVICEMARKETING HAS IDENTIFIED THE CUSTOMER or user as the most critical voice in assessing service quality. Before assessments can be made of service quality in ARL libraries, it is essential to investigate what connotes service quality in the minds of library users. Today the dimensions of library service quality among the ARL cohort are not fully understood from the user perspective. The LibQUAL+ project attempts to identify those dimensions and measure the gaps between expected service and perceived service in each dimension. This article describes the interviews conducted with users of research libraries across North America in the first round of work on the still-evolving LibQUAL+ instrument. The interviews provided a rich pool of information about the users’ own behaviors, their perceptions of what a library should provide, and their interactions with that important resource as they pursued their diverse objectives at their respective universities. Analysis of the interviews contributes to the identification of the dimensions of library service quality, which will be further tested in future iterations of the LibQUAL+ tool. SCENARIO I hurried back to the uniuersity library from a n interuiau I had just conducted with a graduate student in health sciences an order to meet my colleague for our endofthe-day debrifing session. The student with whom I had spoken was passionately self-reliant-typical ofthe graduate students 7ue interviewed-and he had taken to the purpose of my visit with a n earnest goodwill. We spent two hours on a late afternoon exploring the concept of service quality in a research library jrom his Colleen Cook, ‘Irxas A&M General Libraries, College Station, TX 77843-5000 Fred M. Heath, Texas A&M General Libraries, College Station, TX 77843-5000 LIBRARYTRENDS, Vol. 49, No. 4, Spring 2001, pp. 548-584 02001 The Boat-d of Trustees, University of Illinois COOK AND HEATH/USERS’ PERCEPTIONS 549 perspective. On the whole, he valued his experiences at the unizwsity, one of the finest public institutions in North America. For the most part he recognized that its libraries were well-funded, boasting the comprehensive collections and rich array of databases that allowed him to pursue his independent methods of informationseeking largely without impediment. But sometimes the system got in his way. Instead of removing barriers to his quest, libraries seemed to be a party to their erection. A system that appeared so complex and rational could sometimes break down completely. He explained that his interdisciplinary research often required document delivery from other libraries across the vast campus. He would go to the departmental library to pick up the items he ordered only to find that all did not go as expected. “And then you get this crappy looking fax thing that’s really ugly. That’s usually what happens. And then they put all those stamps on it about copyright notices and eveything. I can understand that, but do they have to put it over the text? That’s what they do sometimes” {I37:622-625*). He kept saying that what he wanted was “ubiquity of access,” a concept that resonated with me thefirst time he said it and became more meaning@ to me each time he used it. Would it be too much, he asked, for the modern research library to ensure that he could obtain access to the information he required at any time of the night or day, without regard to its format? (137:198-209). Just what were all these interviews with some of the brightest students and most highly sought-after faculty in North America telling us about the necessary components of service quality in the research library? And just what, if anything, did a carelessly placed stamped notice, obliterating the muddy text of a fax transmission, have to do with service quality?