Quality Services in Academic Libraries

I.K. Antwi, & M. L. Akeriwe

Abstract

The emergence of technology and the changing needs of library users have decreased the importance of the Library as the foremost information provider in the academic environment. This paper discusses how the three dimensions of LibQual, a tool used to measure service quality in academic libraries can be maximised in academic libraries.

Introduction

The primary aim of libraries is to ensure that recorded human knowledge and experiences are collected and organized in a manner that would ensure full access to these records. In the case of academic libraries, they do not only perform this duty but also have the responsibility to ensure that all scholarly communications including the primary resources which they depend on for their research is properly preserved. Advances in the development and application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have created serious competition foracademic libraries from many information service providers. These, coupled with the changing needs of users as well as the fact that academic libraries are being held accountable by their parent institutions and accrediting bodies have compelled librarians to reassess and redefine the quality of their service offerings, to enable them offer quality services. Quality service, as propounded by Sahu (2007), is one that fully meets the expectations and requirements of users. It could therefore be argued that a library that provides the most appropriate information to the right user at the right time and in the required form, could be maintaining quality.

Academic libraries are thus being challenged to redefine the organizational structure, the skills and competencies required by staff, collections, services and the features of library facilities (Miller, 2008). This has become essential in order to meet the expectations of users who as a result of these emerging technologies now expect simplified and immediate results which other information providers like Amazon, Google and iTunes are providing and against which library services are now being judged (University of California Libraries, 2005). Thus the quality of the services provided in academic libraries is what makes the difference between academic libraries and the other service providers. Academic libraries must therefore ensure that they meet and uphold such standards.

Academic libraries are striving to deliver the highest quality of service in a bid to prove the quality they bring to the user and the entire organization. Tools have therefore been developed to measure quality in libraries. One such tool which has been developed to measure service quality in libraries is the LibQUAL+™. The LibQUAL+™ which was developed from the SERVQUAL measures service quality using three dimensions. These are service affect, information control and library as a place. These three dimensions are applied to the library environment to measure the perceived quality of services from the perspective of the user. Academic library management has no option but to strive at satisfying these new and evolving expectations of users for library services and resources as well as prove the value they bring to the organization. Meeting these needs could be interpreted as the academic library providing quality services. Thus, academic libraries must ensure that the various tools and instruction needed for users to access the variety of information resources they collectare provided. This could be achieved if academic libraries are able to employ and retain quality staff , provide quality information as well as quality facilities to ensure the easy access of their information resources. This would help attain high quality services to their users thereby ensuring their parent organizations achieve their goals (Sahu, 2007).

The application of the three dimensions of the LibQUAL+™ in the library's environment and functions could guide the library's management in its assessment of the quality of services that the library is providing.

Statement of the Problem

Emerging technologieshave changed the way users access information. Competitors such as Google+, Amazon and iTunes have made it possible for users to readily and quickly access a vast array of information at the click of a button. Academic libraries are thus losing their place as the foremost information providers in the academic environment. This has compelled academic libraries to prove the value they bring to their users and their parent institutions. Quality service and products are touted as being one of the means through which libraries can beat the competition and cement their positions as the information providers of choice. Consequently, libraries have adopted the LibQUAL+ as the instrument for measuring service quality (Miller, 2008).

The problem then is, how can libraries use LibQUAL to improve the quality of services and products, and what skills and competencies do library management and staff need to provide the desired services and products that would satisfy users.

Concept of Service Quality in Academic Libraries

The concept of service quality in the context of a library could be explained as the difference between users' expectations and perceptions of service performance and the actuality of the service (Sahu, 2007). In order to evaluate the quality of service, librarians would need to be able to assess these services from the users' perspective and also meet their expectation for service.

A number of instruments have been designed to measure the service quality of organizations. SERVQUAL was thus developed as one of the instruments to measure service quality. It is basically a multi-item scale that retail businesses developed to help them assess customer perceptions of their service quality and which libraries also adopted. It was however realized that some of the items were not relevant to libraries. This led to librarians modifying the SERVQUAL to suit their specific needs and termed it LibQUAL+™ (Miller, 2008). This has since been used by libraries to measure the quality of their services.

Five dimensions of SERVQUAL were identified as the basis on which users judged services. These include reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles. These were however condensed into only three dimensions in the LibQUAL+™. These are service affect, information control and library as a place. The LibQUAL+™ is composed of 22 questions and a comment box which are grouped to measure the three dimensions. Each question is answered on a scale from 1 to 9, with 9 being the highest rating (Miller, 2008). The service affect dimension deals with the perceptions of users on the competency and helpfulness of library staff. The information control dimension involves finding out whether the library has adequate collections to meet the user's information needs and if they are organized to ensure independence of library users. The library as a place dimension is concerned with the functionality and sufficiency of library facilities for academic activities (Miller, 2008).

Finding out about the service quality in academic libraries using the LibQUAL+™ would involve eliciting responses from library users based on these three dimensions. The service affect dimension would ask questions that would help identify employees who inculcate confidence in users, give personal attention to users, are constantly courteous to users, always eager to respond to users' queries, are knowledgeable to answer users' queries, deal with users in a caring manner, show understanding of users' needs, exhibit readiness to assist users and employees who are reliable when it comes to handling users' service problems (Sahu, 2007). The service affect therefore enjoins libraries to ensure that their staff are knowledgeable, courteous, accommodating, confident, caring and appreciative of users' needs and expectations as pertains in all other service organizations. The notion of the user being the centre of service delivery must be inculcated into staff.

Academic libraries are therefore bound to equip and ensure that they have staff with the requisite skills and competencies to enable them effectively deliver satisfactory services to library users. As a result of the desire to improve quality and deliver satisfactory services, certain key skills and competencies which Fadehan and Ali (2010) categorize into generic, managerial and professional skills are now needed by librarians. The generic skills include being a good communicator, flexible, adaptable, assertive, creative, innovative, analytical, must be a problem solver, decision maker, a team player, must have good customer relationship, do presentations, manage time and stress, must also have good interpersonal relationships, and must be able to work with difficult people.

The managerial skills needed among others are the ability to think broadly (locally and globally), skillful in planning and organizing, managing finance, team building, decision making, negotiation, consumer management, and leadership skills, managing change, projects, people, time, stress and resources (Fadehan and Ali, 2010).

The professional skills include being technologically knowledgeable, good information literacy skills, technical/professional skills, knowledge management and traditional skills (Fadehan and Ali, 2010). The key competences needed by library and information professionals to enable them meet the e-environment include exhibiting high level of knowledge of their profession and the library system and with sufficient awareness of all the issues that affect their profession including the application of IT to enhance teaching, learning, research and knowledge dissemination. They should also be able to show that they are committed to providing excellent services to their clientele by identifying and handling the varied groups of clientele within the community they serve. They as well, need to keep abreast with the changes in the scholarly use of IT and their user expectations and be able to implement these changes in their systems. They again need to be able to demonstrate leadership skills, share knowledge, demonstrate excellent communication and advocacy skills, know the importance of professional networks and actively participate in them, know publishing trends and communicate effectively with publishers and other information providers and finally continuously upgrade themselves personally and professionally through continuing education.

Where there is a dearth of these skills and competencies, the academic library must inculcate these into their staff through opening up opportunities for further studies both formal and informal. These could be in the form of sponsorship to pursue further education or workshops and seminars to keep them abreast with current trends in the field. In-service training of staff must be a continuous process since quality staff are more likely to provide quality services to their users. In Ghana, in recognition of the need for quality staff, the academic institutions encourage their staff to pursue further formal education at various institutions. This is complemented by workshops and seminars often organized by the Ghana Library Association and the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana to help inculcate new trending issues into library professionals in the country. Some academic institutions also sometimes encourage and sponsor some of their staff to attend international training programmes which they consider necessary for their staff. In consequence of that the University for Development Studies encouraged two of their staff to participate in the Carnegie sponsored Continous Professional Development programme at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, while an additional six staff were enrolled onto the University of Ghana's sandwich Masters programme in Librarianship in 2015.

The responses obtained from these questions would help determine if the service affect dimension is effectively achieved by the particular library under study. Based on these responses, recommendations would be given on the next line of action. As to whether to improve on certain aspects or maintain what pertains. The information control dimension would be concerned with components such as whether electronic resources of the library are accessible remotely, whether the library website is designed to enable users locate information independently, whether both print and electronic information materials needed by users are available in the library, are there easy-to-use access tools to allow users easily find what they need, does the library make information easily accessible for unassisted use (Cambridge University Library, 2010). Academic libraries would have to ensure that they acquire high quality information resources such as taking advantage of inter library loansand consortia to ensure that they meet the information needs of their users. In an environment where resources are scarce, the usual financial predicaments pertain and financial support to the library keeps dwindling, it becomes increasingly difficult for academic libraries to acquire all the information resources they need. Academiclibraries have therefore found very effective and efficient ways of dealing with this issue through library networking and cooperation. These have become very pertinent and an economical way of ensuring that users have access to a variety of information resources and other services which individual libraries may not be able to provide. This is one of the important ways that libraries can survive and stay relevant in the 21st century where tech savvy users are exposed to a wide variety of online information sources (Chadwell, 2011).

Fortunately in Ghana, this has led to the formation of the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH) which has ensured that member libraries have access to online databases which they have jointly subscribed to, thereby cutting down significantly on the cost of acquiring these e-resources individually.

Again, the responses to these questions would help the specific library under study determine if they effectively meet the information control dimension of providing quality services. The library as place dimension would concern itself with issues such as whether the library space inspires study and learning, whether there are individual study spaces, whether the library is located in a comfortable and inviting area, whether the library could serve as a hideaway for study and research and whether there are study areas designated for group study and learning. Once more, the responses from users on these questions would help determine if the particular library is adequately meeting the library as space dimension. Academic libraries would need to evaluate their physical presence to ensure that they are conducive enough for users to prefer to use them over their individual spaces either work places or homes.

LibQUAL+, the Association of Research Libraries indicates, uses a scalable web interface and protocol for reaching libraryusers and asking them about their library service expectations. According to Jackson (2015), it is a standardized tool for collecting users' feedback on service quality in a library measuring minimum, actual and desired levels of service quality expected by users. LibQUAL+ is touted as having numerous benefits for measuring service quality in academic libraries – relative ease of implementation, comprehensive, reliable, stable and comparable across both time and institutions. Scores of service quality obtained from LibQUAL are representative of library service quality, as users perceive it, and as Jackson (2015) indicates may be validly used as a measure for comparative purposes.

LibQual+, according to Okai and Tiamiyu (2015) gives users a chance to tell libraries where their services need improvement so the libraries can respond and manage the expectations of these users. It can help libraries develop services that meet users' expectations by comparing the library's data with that of peer institutions and examining the practices of those libraries that are evaluated highly by their users. Academic libraries therefore need to strategize by moving from only providing what they have in their possession to clientele who come to them, to acting as knowledge navigators and facilitators of change to enable them meet the diverse and specialized information needs of their clientele. Academic libraries wouldthus need to take advantage of inter library loans to help meet the demands of their users. Due to inadequate funding, libraries cannot do all this individually, collaboration and networking has therefore become the way forward to ensuring that they provide their users with quality services.