Survey

The LibQUAL+ survey offered by the American Association of Research Libraries provides a way for users to influence Library improvement priorities by:

1. Giving ratings and comments on how well they think the Library is performing
2. Saying what areas they think have the most pressing need for improvement

What did we get back?

The survey contains 22 standard and 5 local questions to be rated, population and other data questions and an open ended comments facility. There were 4631 NTU responses. This was an excellent response compared with 2008 response rates in other countries. 74% of responses were from undergraduates, 17% from graduate students and 9% from staff (of which 4% were faculty). Response discipline profiles were close to population profiles. Six advertised prizes were awarded to the random winners on January 15 2009.

How did we analyse the results?

We analysed 2180 sets of comments, quantitative data from the official ARL report and data from other countries. We made comparisons with selected individual libraries and consortia around the world. We identified the top 10 areas of commendation, for improvement and most important for users. The Library is using all the data to help develop future action plans.

How adequate are services? How much better can they be?

The differences between various scores is a useful way to show:

• How far above minimum acceptable levels  current levels of service are perceived to be (the adequacy gap)
• How far the Library has to go beyond current performance levels to be as good as users would like these services to be (the superiority gap)

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All top ten aspects of the 27 areas polled relate to service. Clearly users appreciate the professionalism and dedication of Library staff.

AS= Aspects of service IC= Information control LP = Library as place Local = local question

Library weaknesses – facilities

The superiority gap measures the difference between perceived current performance and the desired level of service. It is a measure of how far the Library has to go to fully meet user expectations. The top ten areas where the most significant improvement needs to be made are shown in Table B.

Six of the top ten areas requiring most improvement relate to facilities (Library as Place). Facilities are a major cause for concern and, in fact are rated close to or below minimum acceptable levels. Library resources follow as concerns and service aspects are rated as requiring least improvement. 

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The tables below show the factors with the top 10 desired levels of service in rank order from greatest to least, implying the relative importance of these services to the users.

To please the students, especially undergraduates, improve the environment.

This is consistent with findings elsewhere that library environment is critical for undergraduates, still of importance to graduate students but slightly less so and of least importance to faculty.

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To please the faculty (and, to a lesser extent graduate students) improve the resources and their access.

The top 6 faculty ratings are all to do with Information Control (resources and access). In common with faculty around the world, information control is critical. Resources and access are of lesser importance to graduate students and of least importance to undergraduate students. Faculty also include knowledgeable and high quality Library staff in their top 10 list of aspects of library service of importance to them.

What about the comments?

The 2188 sets of comments comprise compliments (33%), complaints (17%) and suggestions (50%). The comments mirror the numerical data with the nature of their concerns. Almost half of all complaints (44%) and suggestions (46%) were to do with facilities and equipment. These could be summarized as:

• Not enough space
  
• Not enough quiet space
  
• Inconvenient location
  
• Air-conditioning, lighting and other environment issues
  
• Too dull/in need of renovation
  
• Computer equipment too little/ old /slow/accessories poor quality

Information resources complaints and suggestions could be summarized as:

• Not enough in general or in a specified discipline
  
• Too difficult to search / access

Service complaints and suggestions could be summarized as:

• Changing policies on high demand materials
  
• Extending opening hours
  
• More policing of the behavior of students (especially in relation to noise)
  
• More smiles needed from some staff

Comments were analysed by discipline and each subject library has taken responsibility for dealing with those from their relevant user groups.

All specific suggestions and complaints will be considered for immediate or long term action. In some areas, more detailed feedback may be sought from specific users. An action plan, to be integrated with divisional and subject library outcomes is being developed and will be reported here soon.

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How did we rate in the world?

The most useful comparison uses the superiority gap showing how far each library must go to achieve the desired levels of service as indicated by the users. The closer the figure is to zero the better. The overall so-called superiority gap for NTU is -0.83 (service -0.60, information -0.86 and facilities -1.18). Is this good or bad in global terms?

The superiority gap was mapped against the results for all the major overseas library consortiums and with results from individual major research libraries. The NTU gap almost exactly matches that of the JULAC (Joint University Libraries Advisory Committee – all university libraries in Hong Kong) consortium overall. The NTU gap is lower than those for ARL (American Association of Research Libraries), CARL (Canadian Association of Research Libraries) and SCONUL (Standing Committee of National and University Libraries in the UK).

The largest gaps have been posted recently by Japanese and Chinese universities. For NTU to be close to the top quartile of 2008 participating institutions is a reasonable placing. Service and resources superiority gaps are smaller for NTU Library than those for any of the major international consortia. It is in the area of facilities where NTU compares less satisfactorily. In future we would aim to reduce overall and individual gaps to -.5 in order to reach international excellence in all areas.

What other data was collected?

• INFORMATION LITERACY OUTCOMES

NTU ratings compare favourably with those from the major consortiums, with only ARL (American Research Libraries) giving higher overall information literacy question ratings.

• USE PATTERNS

Like Hong Kong library users, a high proportion of NTU users visit the physical library daily (38% of undergraduates, 27% of graduate students). Only 16-17% of US/CARL users report daily visits. Facilities clearly are much more important to our NTU student users.

• GAP SIZE BY USER GROUP

Within users types, NTU staff (other than faculty) are most satisfied (-0.75 gap), then graduate students (-0.80), undergraduates (-0.84) and finally faculty (-0.99) who consider the Library has furthest to go to meet their expectations. The data analysed by discipline and type of user shows that Improvement efforts clearly need to be increased, especially in the less mature/established fields of teaching and research at NTU whose users find supporting information resources not yet adequate for their needs.

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What the library plans to do.

We will:

1. Address the top areas where each user group feels the Library has furthest to improve and the areas which are of most importance to those users
   
2. Report major findings and recommended actions to users
   
3. Incorporate recommended actions drawn from user comments into departmental plans
   
4. Acknowledge the efforts of staff who have been recognized in the large number of compliments received in the survey
   
5. Review some lending and other policies and explore possibilities for extending opening hours as suggested by many users
   
6. Take on board reports of some service lapses and will undertake to reduce these
   
7. Focus collection efforts on emerging areas such as humanities and social sciences which have furthest to improve
   
8. Encourage professional library staff to improve their areas of subject and librarianship expertise, and to interact more closely with users

This outcome should maximize benefits for users and re-enforce the user-centred goals of NTU Libraries. By reporting back to users what actions we can take now, what actions we will take in the future and reasons why certain issues users have raised cannot be resolved simply indicates we have listened and learned. In 2010/2011 we hope to repeat the survey and measure positive improvement in the results for all categories of user and in all areas of facilities, resources and services.