In late 1990s, Gap theories and the LibQual model began to be widely accepted by research libraries in the U.S. Since then, library service evaluation and user satisfaction issues have been discussed in various aspects of both the research and professional literatures of library and information science. Although the research presented herein is concerned with the evaluation of library services from users perspectives -- like LibQual, for example -- it integrated other perspectives proposed in recent years by library researchers, including emotional and material satisfaction, service encounter and overall service satisfaction, and user satisfaction at the micro and macro levels. Specifically, the interrelationship of material and emotional satisfaction with the satisfactions at the micro and macro levels was investigated. In addition, this study sought to clarify factors or attributes of library services that contribute to user satisfaction at the micro and macro levels. Finally, the study examined how users emotional and material satisfaction contribute to overall user satisfaction and user behavior, including user library use behavior in the short term (immediate next time information seeking) and the long term (library use loyalty).
In order to gather data on these user satisfaction issues, a Web survey of college students, a major academic library user group, was conducted at the University of Pittsburgh. Each participant completed a five section HTML survey questionnaire designed to collect information about their perception and attitude towards library resources and services.
Specifically, the findings provide library professionals greater understanding of how users perceive their library use and how user satisfaction is formed and influenced, in terms of its formation, antecedent, and consequent impact. The research also provides librarians with what is hoped will be practical advice on what else they can or should do to improve library use. For instance, it is important to recognize users emotional experience in their library use because it determines their immediate next time library use behavior and service use loyalty; it is easier to achieve service use loyalty for repeat users in some specific services than to achieve general library use loyalty for them or occasional users.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-07242006-160531 |
| Date | 06 October 2006 |
| Creators | Yu, Fei |
| Contributors | Amy Knapp, Gloriana St. Clair, Christinger Tomer, Rush Miller |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-07242006-160531/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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