Questioning LibQUAL+: Critiquing its Assessment of Academic Library Effectiveness
✍ Scribed by Bill Edgar
- Book ID
- 102507330
- Publisher
- Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
- Year
- 2007
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 49 KB
- Volume
- 43
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0044-7870
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
Advertised as a total market survey of an academic library's users, LibQUAL+ has risen to prominence in recent years as a means of assessing academic library effectiveness. In light of this, this conceptual paper raises and addresses four questions arising from its survey instrument. Doing so reveals that LibQUAL+ only partially conceptualizes a library's operations. Furthermore, it emphasizes users' eventual outcomes, such as improved grades, but does not explicitly conceptualize users' more immediate need for epistemological value in the form of information, education, or persuasion. Finally, LibQUAL+'s survey correctly emphasizes the role of user self‐reliance and satisfaction, but it unduly deemphasizes users' need for professional information assistance and their actual experience of quality library service.