Focus on Assessment - Feb 22, 2010

The Libraries conducted LibQUAL surveys in 2002, 2004, and 2008 to determine how our users
perceive us in three dimensions: service, physical environment, and collections.

Based on SERVQUAL, a service effectiveness tool used by industries such as the hospitality
field, LibQUAL was developed by the Association of Research Libraries and Texas A & M
University. LibQUAL has been given to over one million respondents in over 1,000 libraries
worldwide, providing us with norms and the ability to compare and contrast Penn State against
other institutions.

Selected findings from the most recent survey:

Service (Affect of Service)
Users continue to perceive the quality of our services as good. Areas that need some attention
include staff training, public service behaviors, and noise management.

Physical Environment (Library as Place)
Undergrads regard the quality of our physical space as important, and their usage of the physical
library has increased. Faculty and graduate student use has decreased. The addition of a question
relating to community space, i.e., group learning and study, indicates its growing importance to
users.

Collections (Information Control)
The top recommendations for improvement emerged from this category: 1.) improve our website
to make it easier to use and 2) increase our electronic collections. It is possible that our users are
not aware of the magnitude of our electronic collections because they cannot easily and
intuitively access them. The redesign of our website and our strategic initiative to increase ecollections
are due, in part, to what we learned through LibQUAL.

All LibQUAL reports are available on the intranet.

Libraries Assessment and Metrics Council:
https://intranet.libraries.psu.edu/home/groups/assesscouncil.html