For public libraries to deliver appropriate information to various types of users in information society that allows people to access and use a variety of information, it is necessary to provide services applying the universal design principles in ter...
For public libraries to deliver appropriate information to various types of users in information society that allows people to access and use a variety of information, it is necessary to provide services applying the universal design principles in terms of universality. The application of universal design principles is not limited to facilities or products. The universal design principles are also applicable to public libraries that should provide universal services. In fact, it is possible to evaluate services of public libraries by applying the universal design principles in terms of universality. The purpose of this study is to develop the evaluation indicators for universality of public library services, which apply universal design principles to evaluate if public libraries provide appropriate services that meet their original purpose.
For this study, the evaluation indicators for universality were established by drawing universal design application factors and public library service evaluation indicators based on relevant domestic and overseas standards and studies. The validity of established evaluation indicators has been verified in two phases using the Delphi technique, with both the expert group in universal design and the least advantaged group. The reason for adopting the two phases is that there might be lack of accuracy in the analysis of universality of public library services accepted by actual users if only experts' opinions are considered in developing the indicators for universality of public library services adopting universal design principles. Therefore, to increase completeness of this study to develop the indicators for universality of public library services adopting universal design principles, in addition to considering the opinions of the expert group, the opinions of the information havenots consisting of the least advantaged people are also reflected.
The validity and reliability of the evaluation indicators were verified by a survey targeting 252 librarians in public libraries in Korea.
The final 'Evaluation Indicators of Universality of Public Library Services' consist of six evaluation areas (Policy, Facility and Equipment, Information Resources, Human Resources, Library Service and Promotion) and 41 evaluation contents in 10 evaluation items (Service Principles, User's Request, Information Guide, Physical Accessability, Service Safety, Provision of Information Resources, Use of Information Resources, Service Staff, Library Service Programs and Library Service Guide). Each evaluation content is categorized into a relevant factor among five universal design applicable factors (Universality, Convenience, Recognition, Safety and Economic Feasibility) according to its characteristics.
The 'Evaluation Indicators of Universality of Public Library Services' adopting universal design principles that are developed in this study can be used in evaluating each area of public library services and each applicable factor of universal design with regard to universality of public library services in practical application. This means that unlike existing evaluation indicators for public library services, they provide multi-dimensional evaluation through combined methods, rather than single-dimensional normal evaluation. However, it is difficult to say that the evaluation indicators developed in this study can accurately measure the universality of public library services in numerical value. The actual results assessed using the evaluation indicators developed in this study can be used to verify the level of universality of public library services. Therefore, the evaluation criteria of these indicators should be considered in value judgement of public library services, rather than considering just numerical results.
On the other hand, the five universal design applicable factors related to 41 evaluation contents developed in the study enalbe to evaluate public library services by applying the core principles of 'universal design'. The indicators enable to evaluate the universality of public library services with each universal design applicable factor.
This study developed the evaluation indicators to verify the universality of public library services through the step-wise research procedure. However, it is difficult to evaluate the microscopic aspects of public library services in detail as the evaluation scope of public library services is very wide because of the characteristic of 'universality'. However, considering several social and environmental influencing factors surrounding public library services and the necessity of public library services to seek the universality of its service, it is thought that the evaluation indicators developed in this study have important value in verifying the universality of public library services in the macroscopic point of view.