Some faculty and students soon will be invited to help WSU Libraries establish priorities for providing services to the community. And they might get a Kindle for doing so.
On Nov. 2, a randomly selected group of faculty, undergraduate and graduate students will receive an e-mail from the Dean of Libraries inviting them to participate in a web-based survey. It is designed to measure library service effectiveness from the perspective of the library user.
Survey results will be used in establishing priorities for the libraries. The combination of local survey results with those of other participating research libraries will allow WSU to identify “best practices” in providing service to its community.
Those invited to participate are “part of a random sample chosen to represent all WSU students and faculty,” said Jay Starratt, dean of libraries. “A strong response rate is very important to the accuracy of this survey.”
Invitation notices will be sent to e-mail addresses in the WSU campus online directory. E-mail addresses may be updated at the Information Technology e-mail forwarding site at https://infotech.wsu.edu/help/HowTo/Misc/emailfwd.html.
Incentives to participate will be provided. A randomly selected group of WSU respondents will receive a Kindle electronic reader.
The survey, called LibQUAL+, is a large-scale, user-based library service-effectiveness tool developed by Texas A&M University in conjunction with the Association of Research Libraries. WSU Libraries participated in a LibQUAL+ pilot study conducted in 2001. The libraries have continued to use the tool on a regular basis to measure library-user opinions, with the goal of providing excellent service and support for the WSU community.
For more information about LibQUAL+, visit https://www.libqual.org. If you have questions, contact Robert Ferguson, library data officer, at ferguson@wsu.edu or 335-2520.
