User Studies in Libraries

Introduction

As long ago as 1981 the doyen of British information researchers Tom Wilson stated “Apart from information retrieval there is virtually no other area of information science that has occasioned as much research effort and writing as “user studies”. Within user studies the investigation of “information needs” has been the subject of much debate and no little confusion”. (Wilson, 1981). This remains true when we look at the division between traditional and digital libraries. In truth there are very few true digital libraries with digital only content; hybrid libraries with a mixture of resources in all media being much more the norm. And in both digital and hybrid libraries the majority of content consists of digitised versions of existing content rather than born-digital content. Even born digital content such as journal articles or theses will tend to exist in printed form as well. The interesting question which comes from this is then how the use of digital tools will allow much better understanding of how traditional paper-based libraries are used and a comparison of how they support users compared with hybrid and digital libraries. Although users still tend to think of libraries as collections of books, research has shown that they also value support from librarians in their information-seeking practice. The biggest and longest running collection of data about university libraries in the UK is the SCONUL annual statistics which shows how the usage of libraries has changed over almost twenty years. Similar data exists for other countries. This data allows some analysis to be made of how library usage is changing. This chapter gives examples of how user and use studies can add understanding of the library and its role.

User Studies

A major change in how libraries and library services are planned and managed has been a shift to evidence based practice as a tool to support decision making. This first started in medical libraries over a decade ago, but has become a standard approach which is even taught at library school. Using research to support effective library decision making should become part of daily practice: to help library managers learn more about their work, to develop better services and to share ideas about best practice. It helps to build a body of professional knowledge that can benefit the entire profession. The so-called EBLIP-process (Evidence Based Library and Information Practice) aims at helping library professionals by working through the separate stages of formulating the significant research questions, searching for the best available evidence to answer the questions, critically appraising the evidence, establishing the value of the anticipated benefits of the action plan that is developed, and reviewing and evaluating the effectiveness of that action plan.

Measuring service quality

Perhaps the most popular tool for measuring library service quality as seen from the customer’s point of view is the increasingly used and web-based LibQUAL survey. LibQUAL is a survey method used to determine service quality in libraries. In recent years, libraries have become increasingly interested in the concept of measuring service quality and for a number of reasons. With institutions subject to fierce cost pressures and a need to justify every activity, academic libraries are now expected to compete with such other commercial service providers as Google. This new environment has led to the development of a belief that the library should focus on meeting the expectations of today’s customers, where their predecessors might have given greater emphasis to building collections for the future. In addition there has been a more sophisticated understanding of measuring qualitative impacts. While the rise of technology in libraries gives an enhanced capacity to measure some activity, ranging from the number of people entering and leaving the library to the number of hits on library web pages, this does nothing to say whether the service was and is both useful and valued. The purpose of the LibQUAL survey is to seek, record, analyse and then take action on users' opinions of service quality. Subsequent surveys should then allow an evaluation of the impact of the changes. The data collected by LibQUAL is sent to a central database which analyzes the data and presents it in reports that describe users' desired, perceived and minimum expectations of service. For each of the survey's twenty-two questions, the user is asked to indicate their minimum service level, desired service level, and perceived service performance. LibQUAL then ranks users' perceptions and expectations on a scale to produce "gap scores," which reflect the difference between the two. LibQUAL simply defines service quality as the customer's subjective evaluation of customer service.

LibQUAL is hugely popular as a tool, no doubt because in part it allows libraries to demonstrate an attempt to be part of an international and neutral standards based activity. But it also begs a quite fundamental question. LibQUAL's underlying assumption is that only customers can adequately judge quality; all other judgments are essentially irrelevant. Critics of the approach have questioned whether users' service priorities should be the driving force behind the service priorities of academic libraries. So this approach gives strong data using a tested and widely adopted model, but it does conceal an unmeasurable philosophical question of whether all users are equal and whether libraries are concerned only with optimising services for today’s users or whether they have any responsibility to future generations who will use the collections built by today’s librarians. Is immediate effectiveness more or less important than long-term contributions? To take a specific example, should a library sell off its special but currently little-used collections on alchemy in order to instal the wireless connectivity desired by current users?

Measuring collections

Recurring lessons learned from user studies can influence decisions about the investment of scarce resources in the description of primary materials. A vast number of historical, special and archival collections have been minimally processed. It has hitherto been assumed that researchers will visit the collections and be assisted by specialists who can help with data mining. Such collections are becoming increasingly invisible as discovery becomes an increasingly exclusively web-based process. Changes need to be be made to description because researchers less and less often look in library catalogues or archival portals to discover primary resources. There is a growing gap between the expectations of users and historical descriptive practices in archives and special collections. User studies are then critical. From research evidence, the community can determine the optimal data and elements to unite users and materials successfully. Ensuring that “hidden collections” can be discovered requires appropriate description, not just expert processing, cataloguing and the ability to cross-search networks. The entire Discovery-to-Delivery process needs to be supported by information systems, including increased access to resources.

The library needs to optimise access for its current users. Simple comparisons of the usage data of print and electronic formats can, for example, help in deciding whether acquiring a text in electronic format affects the usage of the print version of the text. An example is a study focusing specifically on medical texts. Studies in the literature dealt specifically with general collections and it was not clear if they were applicable to medical collections. It was also not clear if these studies should play a role in determining whether a medical library should purchase electronic texts or whether reserve collections are still needed for print texts. Usage studies were conducted using data from the circulation system and the electronic vendor systems. These were 1) trends of print usage; 2) trends of electronic usage; 3) a comparison of electronic usage with print usage of the same title in the reserve collection; 4) a comparison of electronic usage with print usage of the same title in the general collection. (Morgan, 2010). A study such as this is based firmly on evidence and allows good management decisions to be made.

Measuring user support and Trust Metrics

User support ranges from the provision of a reference desk to training in information literacy and to the embedding of subject specialists in departments and faculties. Each of these roles is implicitly based on trust: trust that the library staff share a common purpose with the user and trust that the advice and support supplied is disinterested. In traditional library systems there are many things which allow trust to be assumed. Librarians are themselves trusted figures, seen as disinterested neutrals who can offer help and advice. Books selected for the library as seen as having some merit or trust because they have been chosen. Some library names – the Bodleian, the British Library – are bywords for things which can be trusted. This is much less true in a digital world where the measures of trust either disappear or have not yet gained acceptance. A book published by Oxford University Press is trusted to be of a certain standard and quality, while a book by the Tea Party offers a different set of standards and quality, each of which is understood. But a web address such as ox.ac.uk or even less helpfully ox.org tells us nothing of the trust which may be taken for granted. Some web resources such as Wikipedia are used – but not always seen as perfectly trustworthy and concepts such as the wisdom of crowds are drawn on to establish trust, but the trust placed in traditional libraries and librarians is worth exploring and building on in a more systematic way than it has been hitherto. The need to establish trust metrics has been best articulated by Geoff Bilder in whole series of conference papers (Bilder, 2008). He studies digital behaviour and compares it with traditional behaviour to identify roles and responsibilities missing in the digital environment. By the same token one can establish roles and responsibilities to be cherished and strengthened.

Measuring the impact of the Library

Interest in the impact of the library on the institution as a whole is fairly recent. Perhaps surprisingly it seems that libraries have failed to collect the sort of statistics which allow quantitative judgements to be made and qualitative judgements have therefore been made. A major study has shown that the impact of the library is important at a corporate as well as an individual user level (RIN, 2011). It is possible to show the extent to which the library is a major factor in helping to recruit and retain top researchers, in helping to win research grants and contracts, and are seen as vital to assisting in the research process. As institutional budgets shrink there is evident value in being able to demonstrate that the library contributes positively to the common weal and is worth supporting. This will rely on the collection of sound evidence and data.

Evaluating buildings and cost-effectiveness

One element unique to traditional libraries is the physical library building and optimising its use. Here again new technologies allow a better understanding of how libraries are used. For example a simple study of how users moved into a public library was managed using GIS software. Patrons were observed from a stationary and unobtrusive location. ArcMap (GIS software) was used to develop an image of the floor so that entry routes could be recorded and then later analyzed. The evidence provided by the study helped the library to establish what areas would be ideal locations for the placement of marketing materials and a book display. Knowledge of popular entry routes might also be useful in identifying routes that could be enlarged to movement round the building by users. GIS was therefore shown to be a useful mapping instrument for recording and analyzing routes taken. (Gore, 2010)

Very little thought has been given to the cost of housing and storing print collections. In most UK organisations everything from local taxes to heating bills are top-sliced from corporate funds. However, the green agenda is pointing to proper management of scarce and increasingly expensive resources. Much more work needs to be done on examining user behaviour and if necessary modifying that user behaviour and of course in modifying buildings so that they meet user needs but reduce consumption of heat, water and light.

Summary

Almost all impacts of the library on users and of the user on libraries can be studied in an effort to improve services and collections. It is now understood that this has to be based on the formulation of questions and the collection of data to answer that question. New technologies provide new tools which allow sophisticated data collection. It is also valuable to collect data according to patterns adopted elsewhere as this allows comparative analysis to be undertaken both nationally and internationally. Studies can also collect qualitative data in order better to understand how the library is used. Whether a library is traditional, hybrid or digital is perhaps less important than the fact that we now have a range of tools which allow the study of user behaviour and the impact of libraries. Libraries and librarians still have a key role in the selection of content for digitisation, content description, trust metrics and the creation of the study environment

References

Bilder, G. (2008) Sausages, coffee, chicken and the web: Establishing new trust metrics for scholarly communication. Eduserv Foundation Symposium 2008. http://www.slideshare.net/efsym/sausages-coffee-chicken-and-the-web-establishing-new-trust-metrics-for-scholarly-communication

Connaway, L.S. & Dickey, T.J. (2010) The Digital Information Seeker: Report of the Findings from Selected OCLC, RIN, and JISC User Behaviour Projects. Bristol: JISC

Gore, G.C. (2010) Identifying the Most Popular Entry Routes into a Public Library Using GIS Can Be a Tool to Increase Ease of Navigation and Identify Placement of Marketing Materials. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, Vol 5, No 4, pp.94-95

Morgan, P.S. (2010) The Impact of the Acquisition of Electronic Medical Texts on the Usage of Equivalent Print Books in an Academic Medical Library Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, Vol 5, No 3, pp.5-19

RIN (2011) The Value of Libraries for Research and Researchers. A RIN and RLUK Report

Schaffner, Jennifer (2009) The Metadata is the Interface: Better Description for Better Discovery of Archives and Special Collections, Synthesized from User Studies. OCLC Report

Wilson, T.D. (1981) On user studies and information needs. Journal of Librarianship, 37(1), 3-15