Assessing Service Quality: Satisfying the Expectations of Library Customers, Third Edition—eEditions e-book
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- Description
- About the authors
- Reviews
Academic and public libraries are continuing to transform as the information landscape changes, expanding their missions into new service roles that call for improved organizational performance and accountability. Since Assessing Service Quality premiered in 1998, receiving the prestigious Highsmith Library Literature Award, scores of library managers and administrators have trusted its guidance for applying a customer-centered approach to service quality and performance evaluation. This extensively revised and updated edition explores even further the ways technology influences both the experiences of library customers and the ways libraries themselves can assess those experiences. With a clear focus on real-world application, the authors
- Challenge conventional thinking about the utility of input, output, and performance metrics by suggesting new ways to think about the evaluation and assessment of library services
- Explain service quality and customer satisfaction, and demonstrate how they are separate but intertwined
- Identify procedures for qualitatively and quantitatively measuring both service quality and satisfaction
- Encourage libraries to take action by presenting concrete steps they can take to become more customer-centric
- Offer a range of customer-related metrics that provide insights useful for library planning and decision making, such as surveys and focus groups
This book shows how to nurture an environment of continuous improvement through effective service quality assessment.
"Throughout, figures provide straightforward model assessment forms and practical examples for the concepts being discussed … As the chair of my library's assessment committee, which incorporates assessment into all aspects of our operations, I believe that libraries of all types can benefit from the various assessment concepts and strategies presented and discussed. Librarians charged with doing assessment for their organizations will find the book valuable in both theory and practice."
— Technical Services Quarterly
"The third edition presents some major updates, reflecting the changing library landscape and technologies. The authors felt the need to make updates in the third edition to address these recent changes, primarily citing newer developments in the library culture at large. Additions in the new edition, such as incorporating and surveying social media, are examples of the new content ... the text is clearly written and presented, with many figures and illustrations to support the discussion points. The book would provide a good foundation for anyone looking to start an assessment or survey of their library and gives a solid framework for the process of initiating the work involved in such an endeavor."
— Reference Reviews