The O'Neill library staff will administer an electronic survey next Monday to a computer-generated random sample of 1,200 undergraduate students, 900 graduate students, and 600 faculty members.
The survey, called LibQUAL+, is used nationally to test user satisfaction with library services. LibQUAL+ is used by a consortium of 316 libraries belonging to the Association of Research Libraries, which includes public, academic, and medical libraries. This year, the military will also use LibQUAL+ for the first time.
The goals of the survey are to establish a library service quality assessment program, develop Web-based tools for assessing library service quality, develop mechanisms and protocols for evaluating libraries, and identify the best practices in providing library service, according to LibQUAL+ brochure.
The survey, which consists of 33 three-part questions, will take students about 15 minutes to complete.
Each question requires three responses: a student's minimum expectation for a particular service, the desired expectation, and the level that the student perceives the service is at currently.
In addition, the end of the survey will include a section for free-text comments, so participants can add specifics to their answers or discuss issues not included in the earlier questions.
"We want to measure satisfaction levels," said Ed Tallent, head of Reference and Instructional Services. "We want to know where students think we can do better."
The library staff, who will get the full results of the survey by the end of June, expect to use follow-up surveys and focus groups to improve the library services at Boston College.
"Once we get the results, there will be an intense period of analysis before we can start to make changes," said Kathy Williams, manager of Circulation Services.
"We are interested to hear what the BC community thinks, but we are also interested in how the BC community ranks when compared to other libraries," said Brendan Rapple, Collection Development librarian. "We want to get feedback and make changes."
"A survey is only as good as its response," said Rapple. "The more the merrier." This is important because the library's evaluation rests on the number of respondents.
"One of our biggest fears is that people will just delete the e-mail before even opening it," said Meg Critch, a cataloguer at O'Neill Library.
To alleviate this fear, the library staff is offering an incentive for students to complete the survey with prizes. All participants are entered into a drawing for twenty $50 gift certificates to the BC Bookstore. Additionally, everyone that participates in the LibQUAL+ survey will be entered into a drawing to win a Palm Tungsten-T handheld computer.
"We really do want to hear from students," said Tallent. "It's an opportunity for them to tell us how we're doing and how we might do a little better."
The 3,300 individuals participating in the survey received an initial e-mail from University Librarian Jerome Yavarkovsky alerting them that they were randomly selected for the survey. The subject of that e-mail was "BC Libraries Value your Opinion." Reminder notices are also scheduled to be mailed Thursday and on April 2, the final day to complete the survey.
More information about LibQUAL+ is available at the BC Library Homepage as well as at www.libqual.org.
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