A Study of the Causes of User Dissatisfaction in Academic Libraries: A Case of University Students in a Developing Country

Abstract

This article investigates students' perceptions and expectations of service quality to understand the causes of dissatisfaction with the services delivered by the university libraries in Bangladesh. A total of 623 usable responses were collected from ten public and private university libraries in the country. The survey data were collected using a modified five dimensional SERVQUALbased questionnaire, consisting of 26 service items. To determine the level of user satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the service items, the study used the disconfirmation theory with slight modification. It was found that users' unrealistically high expectation for quality services is one of the key sources of their dissatisfaction. The other causes of dissatisfaction include lack of user-employee relationships, lack of attention to users' needs, an external communication gap between library and users, lack of attention to enhance staffs' performance, etc. Based on the service deficiencies identified, the study offers some measures that could be used as a way to improve service quality, and thereby user satisfaction.

8 Years of institutional assessment feedback: students’ satisfaction with library services

“…The diverse results of library satisfaction surveys found in the literature speak to the uniqueness of each library and its various user populations (Detlor and Ball, 2015;Greenwood et al, 2011;Hossain, 2014;Jackson et al, 2005;Nixon and Miller, 2008). Shi et al (2004) found that library materials held more importance over service in determining user satisfaction.…”

“…The authors commented that "insatiable user desire for greater resources and accessibility may be a perennial program" (Greenwood et al, 2011, p. 317). Hossain (2014) agreed that unrealistically high expectations for services may be the key cause for dissatisfaction. Furthermore, dissatisfaction tended to develop over a period of time and may have been because of a lack of relationship between the user and library staff.…”

“…Jayasundara et al (2009) conducted an exploratory study using a focus group to first identify the most relevant quality attributes that may have an impact on customer satisfaction and then followed with a questionnaire to identify users' perceptions on the importance of the fifty quality attributes identified in the exploratory stage. Commonly used factors fall into the categories of library access (library hours, remote use and ease of materials access), library environment (comfortable and inviting, noise level, group and individual study areas and furniture and equipment) and service (library staff, Web service and collections) (Begay et al, 2004;Hiller, 2001;Hossain, 2014;Jayasundara et al, 2009). Staff demeanor and competence, as well as services designed to help customers Institutional assessment feedback access the library's resources efficiently, are frequently given equal importance in survey questions as factors related to the library's collection and environment (Andrews and Eade, 2013;Hossain, 2014;Jayasundara et al, 2009).…”

“…Commonly used factors fall into the categories of library access (library hours, remote use and ease of materials access), library environment (comfortable and inviting, noise level, group and individual study areas and furniture and equipment) and service (library staff, Web service and collections) (Begay et al, 2004;Hiller, 2001;Hossain, 2014;Jayasundara et al, 2009). Staff demeanor and competence, as well as services designed to help customers Institutional assessment feedback access the library's resources efficiently, are frequently given equal importance in survey questions as factors related to the library's collection and environment (Andrews and Eade, 2013;Hossain, 2014;Jayasundara et al, 2009). To measure satisfaction, users are often asked to rate how much they believe a factor influences service quality and where the library's performance of those factors rank on the users' expectation level (Detlor and Ball, 2015;Hernon, 2002;Shi et al, 2004).…”

“…Some researchers chose to use the same survey for faculty, graduate students and undergraduates (Detlor and Ball, 2015;Hakala and Nygrén, 2010;Jackson et al, 2005). Others focused only on students (Al-Ansari and Al-Kulaib, 2011;Hossain, 2014;Jayasundara et al, 2009). Hernon (2002, p. 227) posed the question: "Should investigations of service quality focus on actual users or an institution's population"?…”