Other
The survey research The user satisfaction in Zadar Public Library
Helena Novak
orcid.org/0000-0001-7378-0907
Abstract
The survey research entitled User satisfaction in Zadar Public Library, as a part of the extensive survey Zadar Public Library as cultural factor in the city of Zadar, was done by the students of the Sociology Department, University of Zadar in the period from March to July 2009. The survey, which is a continuation of the research entitled Library services, users and using in the new Zadar Public Library done in 2001, examined specific reasons of users’ visits to the Library, their satisfaction with library collections, services and cultural offer, and human and material resources of the Library. At the same time the survey was considering the suggestions of the examinees, regarding the improvement of the Library services. Using the comparative method, this paper analyzes the results of the 2001 and 2009 surveys in order to determine which library services have been improved and which have deteriorated, to find the elements which should be improved. The analysis showed that in the 2009 survey the users rated the services with only a slight difference compared to the one from 2001. The sum of the average grades of all the survey elements shows that the users rated the Library with a very high grade (4 out of 5), giving the highest grades to the library space and to the staff. The suggestions for improvements concern the material prerequisites and equipment. The research showed that there is a parallelism between the planning of library services by the Library itself, and the needs of the Library users. It has also revealed the fact that there cannot be any growth of the users’ satisfaction without improving the material resources. Therefore, this research represents a valuable contribution to micro-evaluation processes in order to improve the quality of library collections and services on the local level, and opens the possibility for starting similar researches in other Croatian public libraries.
Keywords
evaluation; libraries; library collections; library services; user satisfaction; public libraries; Zadar Public Library
Hrčak ID:
80585
URI
Publication date:
8.3.2011.
Visits: 2.639 *