Unveiling the research pattern and trends in library service quality studies: A meta-narrative review

Abstract

‘Service Quality’ and its influence in Library and Information Science discipline are spectacular when studied intensively. In this study, researchers adopted the Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Syntheses: Evolving Standards review method and introduced a novel Initialization, Conceptualization, Actualisation) (ICA) framework for meta-narrative studies. This method would act as a boon particularly to the existing methods of conducting meta-narrative studies in social sciences in general and library sciences in particular. A total of 49 research articles were selected from Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases, covering a span of 5 years, that is, 2015–2019, published in the domain of library service quality. An extensive in-depth analysis of selected publications was carried out under seven categories (i.e. library, library services, quality, ServQUAL, LibQUAL+, user satisfaction and users’ expectations), which were generated using the VOS-Viewer software and ‘Review Tags’ (manually generated using OneNote). The seven categories further identify a total of 27 sub-categories. The quantitative findings revealed that all the 49 reviewed publications were published in 27 journals. All the journals have been indexed in the Scopus database, whereas 15 journals containing the remaining 22 publications are indexed in both WoS and Scopus databases. This study unfolds a transverse trend in library service quality. It would be beneficial for the library managers to sustain libraries’ service quality and set a benchmark in the said field.

The ontology, origin, and impact of divisive public sector rules: A meta‐narrative review of the red tape and administrative burden literatures

“…Finally, we note that we used the meta‐narrative review methodology to look at two literature traditions within the same discipline. Although a number of recent meta‐narrative reviews have adopted this approach (Helps & Grinney, 2021; Schneider et al, 2022; Vaidya et al, 2021), the methodology was first applied in a cross‐disciplinary fashion (Greenhalgh et al, 2005). In our view, however, the essence of the methodology lies in a faithful adherence to the RAMESES protocol and meta‐narrative review values (Wong et al, 2013), and there is nothing inherent to the method that precludes applying it within a single discipline (provided that the literature is sufficiently rich).…”

“…The meta-narrative review methodology grew out of Greenhalgh and colleagues' work in public health(Greenhalgh et al, 2004(Greenhalgh et al, , 2009. The methodology has also been applied to a diverse set of topics including research methodology(Vachon et al, 2021), family psychology(Helps & Grinney), library sciences(Vaidya et al, 2021), migration and culture(Colverson, 2021), service work(Schneider et al, 2022), sport(Hwang & Henry, 2021), and numerous other areas.2 The data, on which this review study is based, are available on github(Campbell, Pandey, and Arnesen 2022).3 Although green tape and administrative exclusion are distinct concepts, we include them in the red tape and administrative burden categories, respectively, for a number of reasons. While five studies in our dataset mention "green tape" in the title or abstract (and three without also mentioning "red tape"), green tape studies generally cite core red tape research both liberally and meaningfully, and the red tape concept plays a non-trivial role in theory generation.…”

“…1 1 The meta‐narrative review methodology grew out of Greenhalgh and colleagues' work in public health (Greenhalgh et al, 2004, 2009). The methodology has also been applied to a diverse set of topics including research methodology (Vachon et al, 2021), family psychology (Helps & Grinney), library sciences (Vaidya et al, 2021), migration and culture (Colverson, 2021), service work (Schneider et al, 2022), sport (Hwang & Henry, 2021), and numerous other areas. …”