Faculty Perception of Information Control Using
LibQUAL+™ Indicators
by Jessica Kayongo and Sherri Jones
Available online 6 February 2008
The LibQUAL+™ survey was used in 2006 to
assess library service quality at the University of
Notre Dame. While results showed that the
Libraries were meeting users’ expectations for
service in most areas, a closer examination of
the data revealed dissatisfaction from a
subgroup of users in one particular dimension of
library services. This study focuses on the
deficient area, information control, and the
dissatisfied group, faculty, by comparing local
results with results from other ARL libraries that
also participated in the 2006 survey.
In addition, an analysis was conducted to
determine the relationships between selected
institutional characteristics and LibQUAL+™
scores for the service quality dimension of
information control at the University of Notre
Dame and other ARL Libraries. This analysis,
with a narrowed focus on faculty and
information control, increased the library’s
awareness about which library services were
most important to faculty and clearly identified
areas needing improvement.
Jessica Kayongo is Reference Librarian,
University of Notre Dame,
206 Hesburgh Library, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
<jkayongo@nd.edu>;
Sherri Jones is Head of Information,
Research & Instructional Services,
University of Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.
130 The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 34, Number 2, pages 130–138
INTRODUCTION
In the spring of 2006, the University of Notre Dame Libraries,
along with more than 200 institutions, participated in the
LibQUAL+™ survey. LibQUAL+™ is a survey administered
by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to measure
library users’ perception of library service quality and to help
libraries identify service areas needing improvement.1 The
LibQUAL+™ project is part of ARL’s New Measures Initiative
which seeks to explore innovative ways for libraries to measure
their value instead of using the more traditional values such as
the size of the library collections or number of patrons served.
The goals of LibQUAL+™, as stated on the LibQUAL+™ Web
site,2 are to
• foster a culture of excellence in providing library service;
• help libraries better understand user perceptions of library
service quality;
• collect and interpret library user feedback systematically
over time;
• provide libraries with comparable assessment information
from peer institutions;
• identify best practices in library service; and
• enhance library staff members’ analytical skills for inter-
preting and acting on data.
The University of Notre Dame is a comprehensive research
university located in South Bend, Indiana. The University is
organized into four undergraduate colleges (Arts and Letters,
Science, Engineering, and Business), the School of Architec-
ture, the Law School, the Graduate School, ten major research
institutes, and more than forty centers and special programs.
The Graduate School encompasses forty-three master’s and
twenty-two doctoral degree programs in and among twenty-
eight university departments and institutes. Total enrollment in
2006 was 11,417 students and 1586 faculty.3 The University
Libraries of Notre Dame serve all of these colleges, centers, and
programs, with the exception of the Law School, and are
members of the Association of Research Libraries, an
organization of 123 research libraries at comprehensive,
research-extensive institutions in the U.S. and Canada.
The LibQUAL+™ survey asks for brief demographic
information, including sex, age group, status, and discipline.
The core of the survey consists of a set of twenty-two questions
relating to three dimensions of library service quality: Affect of
Service, Library as a Place, and Information Control (see Table
1). The eight questions in the column on Information Control
 Table 1 were peer-reviewed articles. The same search in EBSCOhost’s
LibQUAL+™ Survey Core Questions Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts database
returned eighty-seven results, sixty-two from academic journals.
Affect of Service Information Control Library as Many articles have described efforts to change practices
(AS) (IC) Place (LP) based on local LibQUAL+™ results, with several articles
Employees who instill Making electronic Library space pointing out that “best practices” were a sensible extension of an
confidence in users resources accessible that inspires study analysis of LibQUAL findings. Jan Kemp, in her article
from my home or and learning discussing implications for collection management based on
office LibQUAL+™ scores, stated that “[C]ompared with several
Giving users individual A library Web site Quiet space for
much larger research libraries in the United States, the scores
attention enabling me to locate individual
indicate that users at the larger libraries are more satisfied with
information on my activities
their libraries’ collections. Doubling the collection size and
own
budget in the near future is not an option for most libraries, but
identifying best practices may yield some feasible strategies for
Employees who Printed library A comfortable improvement.” She suggested that learning about best practices
are consistently materials I need for and inviting could involve any of several activities including “identifying
courteous my work location libraries with strong scores that have comparable budgets and
Readiness to respond The electronic A getaway for serve similar institutions or contacting collection development
to users' questions information resources study, learning, librarians at the comparable institutions to learn how practices
I need or research and services compare.”5
Several articles have looked at LibQUAL+™ data in
Employees who have Modern equipment that Community space
conjunction with ARL data. ARL collects data annually from
the knowledge to lets me easily access for group learning
member libraries, and, for research on LibQUAL+™, the ARL
answer user needed information and group study
data were useful both for making comparisons within the group
questions
and for looking at correlations.
Employees who deal Easy-to-use access tools Heath et al., in their article about validity correlates of
with users in a that allow me to find LibQUAL+™ scores, analyzed the correlation between
caring fashion things on my own LibQUAL+™ scores and ARL index scores and found that
Employees who Making information “[t]he LibQUAL+™ service adequacy gap means had a higher
understand the easily accessible for correlation (0.208) with the ARL Membership Criteria Index
needs of their users independent use scores of the thirty-five ARL institutions than did either the
LibQUAL+™ superiority gap means (0.095) or LibQUAL+™
Willingness to help Print and/or electronic total perception scores (0.048). Furthermore, he found that “in
users journal collections the aggregate, the LibQUAL+™ means were not appreciably
I require for my work correlated with ARL Membership Criteria Index scores con-
Dependability in cerning the bivariate results.… The biggest correlation involved
handling users' Information Access, as would be expected, because that subscale
service problems involves an element of collections, but even this correlation was
small (r 2 = 0.147 2 = 2.2 percent).” 6 The lowest correlation
(0.004) they found was with the ARL Index and Information
(IC) measure how users want to interact with the modern library Control. They noted that, besides the ARL index ones, all
and include scope, timeliness and convenience, ease of navi- coefficients were statistically significant. This study varies from
gation, modern equipment, and self-reliance. Affect of Service Heath’s as described above, by focusing specifically on the
(AS) includes nine questions meant to assess empathy, res- Information Control gap scores juxtaposed against the indivi-
ponsiveness, assurance, and reliability of library employees; dual variables that make up the ARL Index score. However,
while Library as Place (LP) includes five questions which mea- results were analogous to theirs in finding very little correlation.
sure the usefulness of space, the symbolic value of the library, Some studies have looked at the differences between user
and the library as a refuge for work or study.4 groups in terms of LibQUAL+™ scores. In an article written by
For each question, respondents were asked to indicate their Jankowska et al., the focus was very specifically on one user
minimum acceptable service level, their desired service level, group, graduate students. The authors analyzed the survey
and the perception of the actual service provided by the library results to “evaluate University of Idaho graduate students’
using a scale of 1–9. In addition to the twenty-two core needs and expectations concerning the materials and services
questions, the survey also asked three questions relating to offered by the UI Library. The three components of this analysis
general satisfaction, three questions regarding library usage, and are: 1. Internal benchmarking comparing survey results among
five optional local questions. Additionally, respondents were the four user groups at UI 2. External benchmarking comparing
invited to add written comments at the end of the survey. the UI results with score norms for the entire group of graduate
students at the 147 non-ARL libraries participating in the 2004
LITERATURE REVIEW survey and 3. Interpreting comments made by the graduate
Many articles have been written about LibQUAL+™. For students when responding to the survey, a qualitative method
example, a keyword search using any iteration of the word used to add context to the quantitative analysis.”7
LibQUAL, in H.W. Wilson’s Library Literature and Information Finally, as relates to this paper, other research has focused on
Science database, returned sixty-five results, forty-five of which comparing selected dimensions of the LibQUAL+™ survey.

March 2008 131

Jeff Gatten’s article on measuring OhioLINK consortium
impact focused “primarily on two of the dimensions: access
to information (e.g., ACCESS) and personal control (e.g.,
CONTROL), looking at the zones of tolerance and the adequacy
gap scores (P − M). The ACCESS and CONTROL dimensions
are of particular concern in Ohio because the scores on these
two dimensions are most likely to reflect the impact of the
services provided through the OhioLINK program.”8 Their
analysis was longitudinal in nature and compared subgroups
(different types of libraries) within OhioLINK, as well as other
libraries outside their consortium, finding that OhioLINK
scored higher than libraries outside the group, particularly on
access and control. As they point out, their focus on particular
dimensions of the LibQUAL+™ survey results (access and
control) was because they saw those elements as being im-
portant to user perception of a consortium’s functioning. In the
study undertaken here, the focus was placed on Information
Control (which is a collapsing of the access and control cate-
gories of past LibQUAL+™ surveys) because the results
showed it to be an area of weakness for Notre Dame.
This article focuses on one dimension of the LibQUAL+™
survey, Information Control, and one specific user group,
faculty, by comparing the University of Notre Dame results with
other ARL Libraries’ results. This article will also examine the
relationship between selected ARL variables, or institutional
characteristics, with LibQUAL+™ scores in the area of Inform-
ation Control.
NOTRE DAME LIBQUAL+™ RESULTS
The University of Notre Dame participated in LibQUAL+™ for
the second time in the Spring of 2006. Unlike the first year
(2002) when a random sample of students and faculty was
selected to receive an invitation to complete the survey, all
faculty and students were invited to participate in 2006. All
faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates received an e-
mail inviting them to complete the survey. Three follow-up e-
mails were sent reminding them to take the survey. As an
incentive to participate, anyone completing the survey could
enter into a random drawing for one of six video iPods. A total
of 2737 people completed the survey, including 1850 under-
graduates, 553 graduate students, and 229 faculty.
Mean scores for the minimum, desired, and perceived levels
of service were calculated for each of the twenty-two core
questions and for each of the three service dimensions.
LibQUAL+™ methodology offers the unique ability to measure
the differences or gaps between a user’s desired or minimum
service expectations and their actual perceived level of service.
A Service Adequacy Gap (SAG) score can be calculated by
subtracting the minimum score from the perceived score on any
given question. The Service Adequacy Gap is an indicator of the
extent to which libraries are meeting the minimum expectations
of their users. A negative service adequacy gap score indicates
that the user’s perceived level of service quality is below their
minimum level of service and can be used by libraries to
identify areas needing improvement.9
A Service Superiority Gap (SSG) score is calculated by
subtracting the desired score from the perceived score on any
given question and is an indicator of the extent to which
libraries are exceeding the desired expectations of their
users.10
The aggregate data showed that the Notre Dame Libraries
continue to meet patron expectations for library services in most
132 The Journal of Academic Librarianship
areas.11 The top three areas where the quality of service was
perceived as best overall, based on service adequacy gap scores,
were
1. library orientation/instruction sessions (optional local
question);
2. employees who are consistently courteous (AS); and
3. giving users individual attention (AS).
Survey results reinforced the importance of collections and
resources for our users, especially faculty. Not surprisingly, our
users wanted more books, journals, and online (electronic)
materials. Faculty members were particularly vocal in this area
and were dissatisfied with the library’s collection depth. Add-
itionally, most students wanted longer opening hours with many
wanting 24/7 access. While most participants were generally
happy with the service being provided, results showed that there
was room for improvement in several areas. Specifically, the top
three areas needing improvement, based on service adequacy
gap scores, for each user group were in the area of “Information
Control” and are shown in Table 2.
Closer examination of the data revealed that the largest
negative gap scores occurred with the faculty user group in the
area of Information Control, confirming our perception that
faculty members are the demographic group most critical in
their assessment of service quality relative to their minimum
expectations for service quality, especially as related to scope
and/or size of the collections and the other elements of
“Information Control.” One way to graphically represent the
survey data is through the use of a LibQUAL+™ Radar
Chart.12 The radar chart (Fig. 1) shows the individual item
analysis for each of the twenty-two core questions for faculty.
Shown in dark gray are those areas where the perceived level of
Table 2
Top Service Areas Needing Improvement
User Group Areas Needing Improvement
Undergraduates 1. Modern equipment that lets me easily
access needed information (IC)
2. Print and/or electronic journal collections
I require for my work (IC)
3. Easy to use access tools that allow me
to find things on my own (IC)
Graduate students 1. Print and/or electronic journal collections
I require for my work (IC)
2. The electronic information resources
I need (IC)
3. A library Web site enabling me
to locate information on my own (IC)
Faculty 1. Print and/or electronic journal collections
I require for my work (IC)
2. Printed library material I need for my
work (IC)
3. A library Web site enabling me
to locate information on my own (IC)
 understanding of local results and can hopefully lead to the
Figure 1
identification of best practices.
Summary Radar Chart—ND Faculty
As stated earlier, Notre Dame’s library is a member of the
Association of Research Libraries. The members of ARL are
research libraries “distinguished by the breadth and quality of
their collections and services,” and membership is based on the
“research nature of the library and the parent institution’s
aspirations and achievements as a research institution.”14 While
encompassing a few public and special libraries, ARL member-
ship is composed primarily of libraries from North America’s
top research universities.
When Notre Dame participated in LibQUAL+™ in 2006,
forty-seven other ARL libraries also participated. Forty of those
forty-seven libraries were college or university libraries, the
category in which Notre Dame was included. Each institutional
participant was provided with a summary notebook of results,
along with data files for its library. Participants also have access
to the other institutions’ summary data via the LibQUAL+™
Management Center.
A closer look at the ARL faculty data, aggregated for the
college or university library category, revealed findings similar
to those found for Notre Dame. As seen in Fig. 3, faculty at
other ARL institutions were similarly dissatisfied with the ser-
vices libraries were providing in the area of information control.
Five of the eight Information Control (IC) items analyzed re-
vealed a perceived level of service quality below faculty
minimum expectations, or a negative Service Adequacy Gap.
The largest negative gap scores (shown in dark gray) occurred
with the faculty response to the question “Print and/or electronic
service is below the minimum service expectations for faculty. collections I require for my work (IC-8) and “A library Web site
The largest negative gaps occurred with the faculty response to allowing me to access information on my own (IC-2).
the question “Print and/or electronic journal collections I require
for my work (IC-8),” “Printed library materials I need for my
work (IC-3),” and “A library Web site enabling me to locate
information on my own (IC-2).” Figure 2
Another way to graphically represent the data is through the Summary Thermometer Chart—ND Faculty
use of a LibQUAL+™ Thermometer Chart.13 With a thermo-
meter chart, the data are plotted to show the minimum expect-
ations (low point), the desired service level (high point), and the
perceived service level for each of the three dimensions. Fig. 2
shows a thermometer chart for Notre Dame Faculty. As seen
from this chart, information control was most important to
Notre Dame faculty but it was also the area where their mini-
mum expectations for service were not being met, suggesting
that this was one area where the most dramatic, high impact
service improvements could be made.
LibQUAL+™ also allows libraries to quickly identify ser-
vices that are most important to their users. The desired service
level can be thought of as an indicator of the importance of that
service to the users. Table 3 shows the most important services
for faculty, according to the desired ratings, with “print and/or
electronic journal collections I require for my work” and “a
library Web site enabling me to locate information on my own”
identified as the two most important services. Both are part of
the Information Control dimension. In fact, the top five most
important services identified were in the area of information
control.
ARL LIBQUAL+™ RESULTS
One of the goals of LibQUAL+™ is to “provide libraries with
comparable assessment information from peer institutions.”
Comparing results with comparable institutions can enhance the

March 2008 133

 Table 3
Most Important Services—ND Faculty
Dimension Adequacy
Question Text ID Minimum Desired Perceived Gap
Print and/or electronic journal collections I require for my work IC-8 7.53 8.62 6.48 −1.05
A library Web site enabling me to locate information on my own IC-2 7.29 8.47 6.82 −0.48
The electronic information resources I need IC-4 7.11 8.40 6.88 −0.23
Easy-to-use access tools that allow me to find things on my own IC-6 7.00 8.31 7.05 0.05
Making electronic resources accessible from my home or office IC-1 7.21 8.31 6.99 −0.22
Making information easily accessible for independent use IC-7 7.02 8.24 7.15 0.13
Employees who understand the needs of their users AS-7 6.95 8.19 7.22 0.27
Modern equipment that lets me easily access needed information IC-5 6.99 8.14 6.89 −0.10
Employees who have the knowledge to answer user questions AS-5 7.01 8.13 7.29 0.28
Readiness to respond to users' questions AS-4 6.83 8.06 7.54 0.71
The printed library materials I need for my work IC-3 6.75 8.05 6.23 −0.52
Willingness to help users AS-8 6.83 8.00 7.61 0.78
Dependability in handling users' service problems AS-9 6.91 7.99 7.36 0.44
Employees who are consistently courteous AS-3 6.83 7.90 7.88 1.05
Employees who instill confidence in users AS-1 6.16 7.84 6.96 0.81
Employees who deal with users in a caring fashion AS-6 6.45 7.64 7.48 1.03
Giving users individual attention AS-2 6.31 7.51 7.04 0.73
A comfortable and inviting location LP-3 5.88 7.33 6.06 0.18
A getaway for study, learning, or research LP-4 5.89 7.23 5.98 0.09
Library space that inspires study and learning LP-1 5.71 7.11 5.61 −0.10
Quiet space for individual activities LP-2 5.64 6.98 6.01 0.36
Community space for group learning and group study LP-5 4.66 5.83 5.49 0.82

Similarly, the dimension summary depicted by the thermo-
meter chart in Fig. 4 shows that “Information Control” is the
most important dimension for ARL faculty and is also the area
where perceived levels of service are below their minimum
acceptable levels of service.
Since the most unfavorable Service Adequacy Gap scores
occurred with the faculty user group in the area of Information
Control, and since Information Control appeared to be most
important to faculty, the authors chose to focus this study on the
information control dimension of the survey as related to faculty
at Notre Dame and other ARL institutions that participated in
the 2006 LibQUAL+™ survey. The aim was twofold: to
benchmark University of Notre Dame LibQUAL+™ results
with those of other ARL Libraries in order to identify best
practices and also to look for correlations between library service
quality, as measured by LibQUAL+™ scores, and institutional
characteristics.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LIBQUAL+™
SCORES AND ARL VARIABLES
Two sets of data were utilized for this study. First, data were
gathered from the 2006 LibQUAL+™ result notebooks for each
of the forty participating ARL institutions utilizing the
LibQUAL+™ Analytics Institutional Explorer.15 The Institu-
tional Explorer “provides the users with the ability to enter
search criteria that will produce statistical data similar to the
LibQUAL+™ notebooks.”16 For each institution, four pieces of
data were extracted:
Information Control Service Adequacy Gap Mean Scores—
all users
Information Control Service Adequacy Gap Mean Scores—
all faculty
Information Control Superiority Gap Mean Scores—all
users
Information Control Superiority Gap Mean Scores—all
faculty
The second set of data was gathered from ARL statistics.
Since 1961, ARL has annually collected and published
statistics describing the collections, expenditures, staffing,
and service activities for its members.17 ARL calculates its
Membership Index annually using a formula that weights the
number of volumes, serial subscriptions, number of staff, and
total expenditures. Selected variables from the ARL Statistics
2004/2005 for each institution were selected for inclusion in
this study. Data for each institution were exported into SPSS
for analysis using the interactive area of the ARL statistics

134 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

 Figure 3
Summary Radar Chart—ARL Faculty
Web site.18 Variables selected were those hypothesized by the
authors to be most relevant to the Information Control
dimension of LibQUAL+, based solely on subjective
assumptions. The selected variables appear in bold print in
Table 4.
Figure 4
Summary Thermometer Chart—ARL Faculty
Utilizing SPSS, an intercorrelational matrix19 was created using
the LibQUAL+™ gap scores for all cohort participants and the
selected ARL variables identified above. Results showed a
significant correlation between the following institutional
characteristics and library service quality, as measured by the
Superiority and Adequacy Gap Scores for the Information
Control dimension: volumes held, total current serials, total
prof. + support staff, total materials expenditures, total library
expenditures, expenditures for document delivery and inter-
library loans, staffed service points, library service hours, total
expenditures for electronic resources (see Table 5).
When looking at the faculty user group only, the strongest
correlations were found between Total Materials Expenditures
and Faculty Adequacy Gap scores and Total Materials Ex-
penditures and Faculty superiority gap scores. When looking at
all user groups, the strongest relationships were found between
the number of Service Hours and Adequacy Gap scores (0.80).
Interestingly, the following ARL variables were found to
have no significant correlation to any of the four different gap
scores: computer files, expenditures for computer hardware and
software, expenditures for computer files, and expenditures for
electronic serials. This was surprising, considering the growing
importance of electronic resources to today’s library users and
the clear call from users for more journals in electronic format.
These findings suggest that the number of electronic resources
is only one component of library service quality and that there
are other factors, such as ease of use and convenient access that
are also important. These findings also support those of Kryil-
lidou and Heath who found low correlations with LibQUAL+™
scores and the ARL Membership Criteria Index and concluded
that their findings “serve as another indicator that libraries are
facing increasing challenges in meeting users’ perceptions of
March 2008 135
 Table 4 ations for service in the area of information control were being
ARL Variables met, and, hopefully, could lead to the identification of best
practices at other institutions.
ARL membership index score Ph.D. fields Mean Adequacy Gap Scores for faculty for the service
Canadian exchange rate Ph.D.s awarded dimension of Information Control were extracted from the
results notebooks for each of the participating ARL Libraries
Cartographic materials Presentation participants
and entered into an Excel spreadsheet. When the scores were
Computer files Professional salaries and sorted in descending order, twenty institutions had Adequacy
wages Gap Scores that were higher than Notre Dame’s scores. The
Current serials not purchased Professional staff institutions with the top ten Adequacy Gap Scores were noted as
“Top Performers” and their names recorded for further
Current serials purchased Rank in ARL index examination.
reference Similarly, the Superiority Gap Scores for faculty for the
Expenditures for binding Queries dimension of Information Control were extracted from the
Expenditures for computer files Region notebooks and entered into an Excel spreadsheet. When the
scores were sorted in descending order, nineteen institu-
Expenditures for computer Reserve circulation tions had Superiority Gap Scores higher than Notre
hardware and software Sound recordings Dame’s scores. Again, the institutions with the top ten
Expenditures for document Staffed service points scores were identified as “Top Performers” and their names
delivery and interlibrary Student assistant wages recorded.
loans The final analysis involved focusing on one question
Expenditures for electronic Student assistants
from the information control section of the LibQUAL+™
serials
survey—“A library Web site enabling me to locate information
on my own (IC-2).” One of the important advances in
Expenditures for monographs Support staff facilitating access to library information is the library Web
Expenditures for other materials Support staff salaries and page. LibQUAL+™ results revealed that eighty-eight percent of
wages the Notre Dame faculty access library resources through the
library Web page either daily or weekly compared to only fifty-
Expenditures for serials Total circulation one percent of the faculty who use resources on the library
External expenditures for Total current serials premises (see Fig. 5). These data confirmed the common
bibliographic utilities, Total full-time graduate notion that the amount of time actually spent by library users in
networks, etc. students libraries is decreasing while the amount of time spent online is
Government documents Total full-time students increasing.
While most faculty were using the library Web site daily or
Graphic materials Total interlibrary borrowing weekly, the library was not meeting faculty expectations as far
Group presentations Total interlibrary lending as providing a Web site enabling them to locate information on
Initial circulation Total library expenditures
their own, as evidenced by the “dark gray” on the radar chart for
this question. Therefore, the authors chose to examine this
Library expenditures for Total materials question more closely since it was seen as an area where
bibliographic utilities, expenditures improvements could be made without requiring significant
networks, etc. Total Prof. + support staff expenditures.
Library service hours Total prof. + Support + Superiority Gap Scores and Adequacy Gap scores for ques-
Student staff tion IC-2 were extracted from each institution’s results note-
Manuscripts and archives Total salaries and wages books. Those figures were sorted in descending order to identify
Membership year Total teaching faculty the libraries which received the most favorable scores from their
Microforms Video and film faculty. Twenty-five institutions had Adequacy Gap Scores
higher than Notre Dame’s scores for question IC-2. Similarly,
Miscellaneous materials Volumes added, gross twenty-three institutions had Superiority Gap Scores higher
expenditures than Notre Dame’s scores. Again, the top ten performers were
Monographs purchased Volumes added, net identified and recorded.
Other operating expenditures Volumes held With the “top performers” identified, the next step was to
begin trying to identify best practices. Web sites of the “top
performers” were examined in an effort to identify common
features. This proved to be more difficult than expected due to
quality of service that go beyond the abundant availability of the complexity of academic library Web sites and the many
local resources.” 20 Clearly, further research is needed to elements involved in Web site design. The authors decided to
demonstrate the relationship between these new measures of focus their examination on how the Web sites were organized to
library service and impact and the more traditional measures. help users conduct research.
Results from previous focus group and usability studies at
BENCHMARKING WITH OTHER ARL LIBRARIES Notre Dame revealed that the primary reason users came to the
Comparison of Notre Dame’s scores with other ARL Libraries’ library’s Web site was to find articles. However, usability
scores provided additional insight into how well faculty expect- studies show that this is the task in which users are least

136 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

 Table 5
Relationship Between Institutional Characteristics and LibQUAL+™ Scores
Adequacy Gap Superiority Gap Adequacy Superiority
Faculty Faculty Gap All Gap All
Adequacy gap faculty – 0.93 ⁎⁎ 0.80 ⁎⁎ 0.76 ⁎⁎
Superiority gap faculty 0.93 ⁎⁎ – 0.72 ⁎⁎ 0.76 ⁎⁎
Adequacy gap all 0.80 ⁎⁎ 0.72 ⁎⁎ – 0.91 ⁎⁎
Superiority gap all 0.76 ⁎⁎ 0.76 ⁎⁎ 0.91 ⁎⁎ –
Volumes held 0.40 ⁎ 0.37 ⁎ 0.36 ⁎ 0.35 ⁎
Total current serials 0.35 ⁎⁎ 0.30 0.35 ⁎⁎ 0.31
Total professional and support staff 0.41 ⁎ 0.38 ⁎ 0.33 ⁎ 0.27
Total materials expenditure 0.52 ⁎⁎ 0.50 ⁎⁎ 0.41 ⁎ 0.37 ⁎⁎
Total library expenditures 0.45 ⁎⁎ 0.43 ⁎⁎ 0.36 ⁎ 0.27
Expenditures for document delivery 0.33 ⁎ 0.27 0.36 ⁎ 0.38 ⁎
and interlibrary loan
Staffed service points 0.38 ⁎ 0.39 ⁎ 0.25 0.11
Service hours 0.35 ⁎ 0.39 ⁎ 0.80 ⁎⁎ 0.33 ⁎
Total expenditures—electronic resources 0.27 0.32 0.72 ⁎⁎ 0.32
⁎ p b 0.05.
⁎⁎ p b 0.01.

successful. Research conducted by Elsevier’s User Centered
Design Group suggests that a “library web site should be
organized around the following user tasks. These are listed
according to their importance to users or the frequency with
which users engage in these tasks:
1. Conducting research to find materials such as journal articles,
indexes and books.

Figure 5 2. Finding course materials such as lecture notes, reserved

Library Use Summary—ND Faculty books, suggested links or other materials related to certain
classes.

3. Finding information about libraries such as location and

hours of operation.

4. Getting help in using a library and library web site.”21

The researchers further stated that a library Web site de-

signed to facilitate the tasks listed above would assign the most
space and prominence to the first task, conducting research. In
fact, Chris Jasek was quoted as saying that, “[T]he biggest
mistake library web sites make is not giving enough space to the
task 85 percent of people come to the library web site for-
finding research materials like journal articles.”22
With this in mind, the authors examined the Web sites of the
top performers to see how they were designed to help users
conduct research. While examining the Web site of Top
Performer #1 (based on SAG for faculty for IC-2), the authors
quickly noticed the presence of an online library search engine
allowing users to simultaneously search any combination of
their databases, electronic journals, their online catalog, and
other online resources directly from the library’s homepage. The
list of top performers has been shared with Notre Dame
Libraries’ Web Presence Improvement Team (WPIT), with plans
to continue examining library Web sites of the top performers to
determine what these libraries are doing differently to meet their
users’ expectations in the area of information control.

March 2008 137

 CONCLUSION
Focusing on faculty and on the service dimension of inform-
ation control, this study analyzed the survey data for the ARL
Libraries participating in LibQUAL+™ in 2006. The aim was
to benchmark Notre Dame’s survey results against other ARL
libraries in order to identify best practices and to look for any
correlations between library service quality, as measured by
LibQUAL+™ gap scores, and ARL selected institutional
characteristics.
Analyzing the survey results with a focus on a single user
group, faculty, and a single dimension of library service quality,
information control, increased the library’s awareness about
which library services were most important to faculty and
clearly identified areas needing improvement. It also confirmed
that there were differences in needs and expectations about
library services among faculty, graduate students, and under-
graduates and that each group must be considered when making
service improvements. Identifying the unique information needs
of various user groups was challenging, but LibQUAL+™
provided us with a useful tool in meeting that challenge. The
Notre Dame Libraries are expected to continue participation in
LibQUAL+™ in the future and to utilize a variety of other
methods to assess user needs and to measure its performance in
meeting these needs.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. Association of Research Libraries, “LibQUAL+™: Charting
Library Service Quality,” ARL, http://www.libqual.org.
2. Ibid.
3. Office of Undergraduate Admissions, “2006–2007 Statistics,”
University of Notre Dame, https://admissions.nd.edu/firstyear/
statistics.cfm.
4. For background information on the identification of the original
Libqual dimensions, see: Cook, Colleen and Fred M. Heath.
“Users’ Perception of Library Service Quality: A LibQUAL+ Qua-
litative Study.” Library Trends 49, no. 4 (Spring 2001): 548–584.
5. Kemp, Jan H. “Using the LibQUAL+ Survey to Assess User
Perceptions of Collections and Service Quality.” Collection
Management 26, no. 4 (2001): 1–14.
138 The Journal of Academic Librarianship
6. Heath, Fred, Colleen Cook, Martha Kyrillidou, and Bruce
Thompson. “ARL Index and Other Validity Correlates of
LibQUAL+™ Scores.” portal: Libraries & the Academy 2, no. 1
(January 2002): 27–43.
7. Jankowska, Maria Anna, Hertel, Karen, and Nancy J. Young.
“Improving Library Service Quality to Graduate Students:
LibQUAL+™ Survey Results in a Practical Setting.” portal:
Libraries & the Academy 6, no. 1 (January 2006): 59–77.
8. Gatten, Jeffrey N. “Measuring Consortium Impact on User
Perceptions: OhioLINK and LibQUAL+™.” Journal of Academic
Librarianship 30, no. 3 (May 2004): 22–228.
9. Cook, Colleen, Heath, Fred, and Bruce Thompson. “Zones of Tole-
rance in Perceptions of Library Service Quality: A LibQUAL+™
Study.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 3, no. 1 (2003): 113–123.
10. Ibid.
11. LibQUAL+™ Spring 2006 University of Notre Dame Survey
Results. (Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries,
2006).
12. For an explanation on how to read LibQUAL+™ charts, see http://
www.libqual.org/Information/Tools/index.cfm.
13. Ibid.
14. Association of Research Libraries, “Principles and Procedures of
Membership,” http://www.arl.org/arl/membership/qualprin.shtml.
15. Association of Research Libraries, “LibQUAL+™ Analytics
Institutional Explorer,” ARL, http://www.libqual.org/Interactive/
explorer.cfm.
16. Ibid.
17. ARL, “Statistics and Measurement,” ARL, http://www.arl.org/stats/
annualsurveys/arlstats/.
18. ARL, “ARL Statistics: Interactive Edition,” University of Virginia
Library, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/arlbin/arl.cgi?
task=setupsubset.
19. George, Darren and Paul Mallery. SPSS for Windows Step by Step:
A Simple Guide and Reference 14.0 Update (Boston, MA: Allyn
and Bacon, 2007), pp. 124–126.
20. Kyrillidou, Martha and Fred Heath. “The Starving Research
Library User: Relationship Between Institutional Characteristics
and Spring 2002 Scores.” Journal of Library Administration 40,
no. 3/4 (2004): 1–11.
21. Jasek, Chris. How to Design Library Web Sites to Maximize
Usability (San Diego, CA: Elsevier Library Connect, 2004), p. 12.
22. Ibid.