With the rapidly changing competitive information environment, research libraries can take their firm positions within their organizations, only when management and library users recognize the value of library services. Otherwise, the research library...
With the rapidly changing competitive information environment, research libraries can take their firm positions within their organizations, only when management and library users recognize the value of library services. Otherwise, the research library cannot even survive as a part of the organization. To justify the value of existence as an inner part of the organization and further continuous growth, diverse specialized library services inducing user satisfaction should be developed. Above all, the evaluation of the quality on the library services must be conducted in advance for the satisfactory service development and offering.
The purpose of this study is to examine users’ perceived importance for service attributes and performance in research libraries, and further to suggest the improvement strategies for research libraries. The survey was conducted for the 420 library users of fourteen government-funded research institutes under the National Research Council for Economic, Humanities, and Social Sciences(NRCS). The questionnaire for this research was developed from the standard LibQUAL+, which consists of three service quality dimensions with 22 items. They were conceived to evaluate the perceived importance of service attributes and their performance of library users. Statistical analyses were conducted to identify the relationship between library service quality and users’ satisfaction, and moreover the gap between perceived importance and performance by user groups. According to the result of statistical analyses, the priority of service improvement strategies of research libraries were suggested.
In order to identify the gap between perceived importance and performance among the library users, the gap analyses and paired sample t-test were conducted by demographic categorical groups. According to the test results, for all of the 22 items, their performances showed lower scores than those of the perceived importance. While the order of service quality dimensions by the perceived importance is Information Control, Service Affect, and Library as Place, for the perceived performances, Service Affect, Information Control, Library as Place respectively. The gap analyses results showed that while Service Affect only was the positive gap, the other two, Information Control, Library as Place, were negative, which might mean the performance of the two were perceived insufficient.
According to the perception analyses by users’ groups, for all of the organizational levels, three groups of Management, Researcher, and Staff, the perceived importance showed higher scores than those of perceived performance for overall service attributes. The order of perceived importance among three groups is Management, Researcher, and Staff. While the perceived gap is smallest(-.09) in Management group, the largest(-.25) in Researcher group, which might mean that Researcher group mostly perceived library services as insufficient ones. Because for the dimension of Service Affect, all of the three groups perceived that performance was higher than importance, the fact was identified that the service competency and attitude of librarians were perceived highly.
For perceived importance of service quality dimensions, while Management and Staff showed in order of Service Affect, Information Control, and Library as Place, Researcher showed in order of Information Control, Service Affect, and Library as Place respectively. For perceived performance of service quality dimensions, all of the three groups showed in order of Service Affect, Information Control, and Library as Place. Because the most positive gap item for all three groups was ‘giving users individual attention’, the fact was identified that the performance of the librarians attitude was perceived highly. The most negative gap item was ‘the electronic information resources I need’ for Management, but ‘a library Web site enabling me to locate information on my own’ for groups of Researcher and Staff.
The IPA analysis, the two-dimensional matrix by the x-axis for performance and the y-axis for importance, was conducted to derive the four specific recommendations for user satisfaction management. Importance-Performance matrix consists of four quadrants, ‘Keep Up the Good Work(QuadrantⅠ)’, ‘Concentrate Here(Quadrant Ⅱ)’, ‘Lower Priority (Quadrant Ⅲ)’ and ‘Possible Overkill(Quadrant Ⅳ)’. According to the IPA analysis results, while 6 items of Service Affect belonged to ‘Keep Up the Good Work’, 7 items of Information Control did ‘Concentrate Here’, 6 items(1 from Service Affect, 1 from Information Control, and 4 from Library as Place) belonged to ‘Lower Priority’, 3 items(2 from Service Affect, 1 from Library as Place) belonged to ‘Possible Overkill’. The IPA analysis results showed managerial implication that library resources should be invested in the Information Control. According to IPA analysis results by user groups, the common items of ‘Concentrate Here’ for all three groups were ‘the electronic information resources I need’, ‘easy-to-use access tools that allow me to find things on my own’, ‘making information easily accessible for independent use’. Perceived performance could be developed with the improvement of these items by priority. In additions, for Management group, ‘making electronic resources accessible from my home or office’ and ‘print and/or electronic journal collections I require for my work’ belonged to ‘Concentrate Here’. Some items of each group belonging to ‘Concentrate Here’ are as follows; for Researcher group, ‘a library Web site enabling me to locate information on my own’, ‘the printed library materials I need for my work’, ‘print and/or electronic journal collections I require for my work’, and ‘making electronic resources accessible from my home or office’, and for Staff group, ‘a library Web site enabling me to locate information on my own’ and ‘the printed library materials I need for my work’. As most items of Service Affect belonged to ‘Keep Up the Good Work’, the fact was identified that library users evaluated competence and attitude of library personnel highly for both importance and performance.
The four research hypotheses based on the research model were tested. First, all three service quality dimensions had the statistically significant influence on the user satisfaction. Second, the gap between importance and performance perception by user groups had statistically significant difference in Service Affect and Information Control dimensions. The Management showed significantly higher scores than Researcher for the importance and performance perception of Service Affect, and performance perception of Information Control. Researcher showed significantly higher scores than Staff for importance perception of Information Control. Third, the statistically significant differences were exit in the user satisfaction between user groups. Further, according to the post-hoc analysis results, the difference of user satisfaction was significant between Management and Researcher groups. Finally, each quadrant of IPA matrix by user groups had the statistically significant influence on the user satisfaction. For Management, while quality items of Service Affect had significant influence on user satisfaction, none of Library as Place had significant influence on user satisfaction. As Library as Place had significant influence on user satisfaction for Researcher and Staff, comfortable and pleasant working environment could be necessary. The relationship between user satisfaction and ‘Concentrate Here’ by user groups are as follows. For Management, ‘making information easily accessible for independent use’, for Researcher ‘easy-to-use access tools that allow me to find things on my own’, for Staff ‘making information easily accessible for independent use’ and ‘a library Web site enabling me to locate information on my own’ respectively. Improvement could be developed by focusing first on quality items of ‘Concentrate Here’ influencing user satisfaction.
According to the analysis results, the way how service quality development strategies in research libraries could be developed under scare resources and limited budget had been suggested. Strategies were based on the quality items of ‘Concentrate Here’ by user groups, common quality items among user groups that influence user satisfaction should be the priority of library services.
The study was conducted on the perceived importance and performance, not expectations, based on the LibQUAL+ 22 service attributes. By conducting IPA, 22 service attributes were classified into 4 quadrants according to their perceived importance and performance. Different from current research, considering the characteristics of research institutes, perceived importance and performance were measured by user groups, Management, Researcher, Staff. The gap on the perceived importance and performance were analyzed among user groups, and further results of the IPA analysis were used for items, which should be first improved. It could be contributable that the research suggested how the research libraries could develop improvement strategies under scare resources and limited budget.