The Library Assessment Committee selected 1,153 Dartmouth undergraduates and 1,909 graduate students to participate in the second LibQUAL+ survey to evaluate the efficiency and quality of Dartmouth's library services. Based on the results of a previous survey, given in 2004, library hours were extended from midnight to 2 a.m., according to Government Information Librarian John Cocklin.
"We know students are asked to take a lot of surveys, so we worked with the Office of Institutional Research to come up with a random sampling of students," Cocklin, who chairs the committee, said.
The survey contains 30 questions, asking participants to rate their satisfaction with aspects of the library from "the printed library materials I need for my work" to "employees who deal with users in a caring fashion." There is also space for user comments at the end of the survey.
Cocklin said the survey should only take between 15 and 20 minutes to complete. The time will be well spent, he said, because the Committee plans to give ample consideration to the to participants' answers.
"You can tell from the 2004 survey that we take the results seriously and, where appropriate, we act on them," he said.
Until 2004, late-night study sessions in Baker-Berry Library ended when the library closed at midnight. Based on the results of a LibQUAL+ survey given to a random sampling of Dartmouth students that year, library administrators were able to gain funding to extend the library's hours to 2 a.m.
Additional changes that resulted from the 2004 survey included renovated study spaces in Dana and Feldberg libraries, the addition of Search360 and other catalog enhancements and the library system's newly updated web site.
Cocklin was not surprised by the responses to the 2004 survey, he said, noting that the student feedback was the key to making the changes participants requested.
"We often know anecdotally about these things," he said, referring to individual student feedback and requests. "We knew that students were interested in extended library hours and improved study spaces, but [the survey] is a good opportunity to get that information in a systematic way."
The most surprising responses to the 2004 survey showed that students were not aware of many services the library offered, Cocklin said.
"When we saw that some students weren't aware of services like off-campus access to the library databases, we knew we needed to do a better job of outreach," he said.
According to Cocklin, demographic information collected by participants revealed more expected outcomes in 2004.
"Last time, based on participants' ideal ratings, we saw that access to print collections was very important to students in the humanities," he said. "On the other hand, electronic resources were more important to engineering and business students."
Instead of administering the survey more frequently, Cocklin said four years was an ideal length of time to wait, as most undergraduates will not be asked to complete a survey twice.
"It's a lot of work to put the survey on, and we especially understand that we don't want to over-survey people," he said.
Dartmouth acquired the LibQUAL+ framework from the Association of Research Libraries, Mary LaMarca, Library Communications and Web manager, said in an e-mail.
"LibQUAL+ is a suite of services that libraries use to solicit, track, understand, and act upon users' opinions of service quality," she wrote.
LibQUAL+ is a division of ServQUAL, a frame developed in the mid-eighties to measure service quality in sales and retail.
When applied to the library system, Cocklin said, the survey allows the Committee to evaluate both users' perceptions of current services and as well as their minimum and ideal levels.
