Service innovation in academic libraries: is there a place for the customers?

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to investigate whether management and employees in academic libraries involve users in library service innovations and what are these user roles. • Design/methodology/approach: The paper first conducts a literature review focusing on innovation, new product development, new service development and library science with specific focus on users and management. Subsequently the research uses a case study approach to investigate management and customer involvement in a Danish academic library. • Findings: Results from the case study show that academic libraries are making some attempts to draw on customers in service innovations and not only rely on management and employees. The main conclusion is that there are unexplored possibilities for customer involvement in library service innovations. • Research limitations/implications: One limitation relates to the difficulty of generalization of the findings to other Danish libraries and especially other national contexts. The other one relates to the preponderance of the literature from sources outside the field of library management and library science. Therefore, library managers might have to be cautious in using the results of this study. • Practical implications: This paper has practical implications for library managers, employees, library science and innovation researchers alike. • Originality/value: This article is original because it generates new insights into management and especially customer involvement in academic library service innovations on the base of an in depth case study of Danish academic library Research paper

Guidelines for User Driven Service and E-Service Innovations

“…Similarly, previous literature on service innovation and design (NSD) (e.g. Alam and Perry, 2002;Alam, 2002;Alam, 2006;Scupola and Nicolajsen, 2010) suggests that service innovation has to be anchored in the organization's strategy in order to succeed (e.g. Bitner et al, 2008).…”

“…Nambisan (2002) has developed three roles that customers can have in new product development: "customer as a resource", "customer as co-creator" and "customer as user". More recently Scupola and Nicolajsen (2010) and have showed that the roles developed by Nambisan (2002) in the context of New Product Development, can also be applied in the context of new service development. The role of the customer as a resource in the phases of generating new product ideas has been extensively investigated by the marketing and innovation literature (e.g.…”

How does knowledge management affect service innovation in academic libraries?: A survey study

“…Technology works as facilitator or enabler. Very few studies have looked at innovation in academic libraries – relationship between library size and innovation in digital reference services (White, ), knowledge innovation culture (Sheng & Sun, 2007), innovation ideas in academic libraries (Jing & Jin, 2009) and customer role for service innovation (Scupola & Nicolajsen, ). However, these studies have not incorporated the core concept and dimensions of service innovation adequately.…”

“What We Do Every Day Is Impossible”: Managing Change by Developing a Knotworking Culture in an Academic Library

“…A shift from book-centric to customer-centric work has been underway for some time (Brophy, 2007;Lossau, 2008;Scupola & Nicolajsen, 2010). Instead of being reactive and passive actors, librarians are expected to be proactive and integrated into research work: to leave the library premises, forget the library jargon, meet customers elsewhere and innovate new services.…”