Assessing Service Quality: Satisfying the Expectations of Library Customers

by Peter Hernon, Ellen Altman, Robert E. Dugan

Overview

Academic and public libraries are continuing to transform as the information landscape changes, expanding their missions into new service roles that call for improved organizational performance and accountability. Since Assessing Service Quality premiered in 1998, receiving the prestigious Highsmith Library Literature Award, scores of library managers and administrators have trusted its guidance for applying a customer-centered approach to service quality and performance evaluation. This extensively revised and updated edition explores even further the ways technology influences both the experiences of library customers and the ways libraries themselves can assess those experiences. With a clear focus on real-world application, the authors

• Challenge conventional thinking about the utility of input, output, and performance metrics by suggesting new ways to think about the evaluation and assessment of library services
• Explain service quality and customer satisfaction, and demonstrate how they are separate but intertwined
• Identify procedures for qualitatively and quantitatively measuring both service quality and satisfaction
• Encourage libraries to take action by presenting concrete steps they can take to become more customer-centric
• Offer a range of customer-related metrics that provide insights useful for library planning and decision making, such as surveys and focus groups

This book shows how to nurture an environment of continuous improvement through effective service quality assessment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780838913109
Publisher:	American Library Association
Publication date:	05/12/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Peter Hernon is a professor emeritus at Simmons College, Boston, and was the principal (and founding) faculty member for the doctoral program, Managerial Leadership in the Information Professions. He received his PhD degree from Indiana University, Bloomington, and was the 2008 recipient of the Association of College and Research Libraries’ award for Academic/Research Librarian of the Year, the founding editor of Government Information Quarterly, and past editor-in- chief of The Journal of Academic Librarianship. He is the coeditor of Library & Information Science Research and has taught, conducted workshops, and delivered addresses in eleven countries outside the United States. He is the author or co-author of 57 books, including the award-winning Federal Information Policies in the 1980s (1985) and Viewing Library Metrics from Different Perspectives (2009).

Ellen Altman, now retired, was visiting professor in the Department of Library and Information Studies, Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), 1996– 1997. She had been a faculty member at the Universities of Kentucky and Toronto and at Indiana University, professor and director of the Graduate Library School at the University of Arizona, and feature editor of Public Libraries, the official publication of the Public Library Association. Altman was coeditor of “The JAL Guide to the Professional Literature” in the Journal of Academic Librarianship, a member of the editorial board of Library Quarterly, and a co-author of Performance Measures for Public Libraries. She received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Rutgers School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, in 1983.

Robert E. Dugan is the dean of libraries at the University of West Florida (Pensacola, FL). Prior to assuming this position, he had been at Suffolk University, Boston; Wesley College, Dover, DE; and Georgetown University, Washington, DC. He has also worked in state and public libraries during his nearly 40-year career. He is the coauthor of eleven books, including Viewing Library Metrics from Different Perspectives.

Editorial Reviews

As a complement to their earlier Service Quality in Academic Libraries (Professional Media, LJ 2/1/96), authors Hernon (GSLIS, Simmons Coll.) and Altman (Graduate Library School, Univ. of Arizona) now concentrate on how to assess service quality and customer satisfaction. Here they suggest new ways to think about library services, clarify the distinction between service quality and customer satisfaction, present strategies for developing a customer service plan, identify procedures to measure service quality and satisfaction, and, if you havent already guessed, challenge conventional thinking about these powerful principles. These ideas are built on long-held important elements that guide any successful business; the bibliography is replete with library literature indicating the wide-ranging adaptation of these vital components in libraries and the prevailing awareness of how important it is to focus the operations of a library around the expectations of the customer. Numerous excellent tracking forms and survey and satisfaction instruments provide mechanisms to carry out a commitment to satisfying the needs of customers, especially for leading librarians who long ago tossed that useless suggestion box. Kudos to these authors for providing an essential resource for librarians who understand that folks who walk into their libraries are not patrons but customers. Highly recommended, especially for MLIS faculty and students.Dale F. Farris, Groves, TX

Library Journal