Purpose & Goals

Research question: What is the construct of library service quality from a user perspective for the mid 21st century? How does that theory validate, add to or alter the original LibQual dimensions of affect of library service, information control and library as place? Purpose: To evaluate whether the user-based construct of library service quality in LibQual has changed in important ways since the original LibQual research was conducted in the early 2000s and, if so, to suggest ways in which the theory could be added to or altered.

Design & Methodology

The LibQual survey research (Cook and Heath, 2001; Cook 2001) was a mixed methods study in two parts, a qualitative theory proposal phase, and a quantitative survey construction phase. This study revisits the work of the qualitative work of the study, and regrounds a construct of library service from a user perspective through semi-structured, on site interviews with library users, (faculty members, graduate and undergraduate students and provosts) from 8-10 representative libraries, initially in North America. Employing naturalistic inquiry and grounded theory methods, data analysis begins immediately upon collection of data, and is subjected to multiple, rigorous analyses using Atlas TI until the data are saturated and a theory emerges. Cook, C. and F. Heath. (2001). "Users' perceptions of library service quality: A LibQual+ qualitative study." Library Trends 49( 4): 548-584 Cook, C. (2001). "A mixed-methods approach to the identification and measurement of academic library service quality constructs: LibQual+" Dissertation Abstracts International 62 (07): 2295A, (University Microfilms No. AAT 3020024).

Conclusions

Although the study is continuing and data will be continuously analyzed until fully saturated, preliminary results suggest that the three LibQual dimensions of library service: affect of service, information control and library as place will continue to largely construct a user-centric theory of library service into mid-century. However, the important manifestations of the dimensions and the relative weight of each dimension to different user groups may have changed. For example, the importance of library as place for students seems to have strengthened in importance. In the past 20 years, the explosion of digital content and ease in which it is accessed, the authority of content, the effects of the pandemic, particularly questions around copyright and use of print content, the emerging impact of AI, the global renaissance of library construction, and the role of the librarian are emerging as influencers in a theory of library service mid-century.

Implications & Value

It is incumbent upon the community to assess how well society's large investment in its libraries is managed. The LibQual+ survey has been an important tool in this endeavor. From 2000 to 2021, the LibQual+ survey under the Association of Research Libraries' (ARL) management, has been used by over 1,300 libraries worldwide. There have been over 3,321 institutional surveys from 37 countries, in 20 language translations, garnering 2.9 million survey respondents (Introduction, McGill notebook of LibQual+results). As a tested valid and reliable total market survey, LibQual has provided a tool that allows libraries to compare their results to similar libraries over time. Because psychometric instruments such as LibQual+ may atrophy over time, for LibQual+ to continue to serve as an important tool in the assessment toolkit it is essential to reground its underlying theory.