Measurement of service quality in librarianship sector and application for an academic library

SUMMARY The concept of service quality has had a profound impact on business world. Commensurate with its increasing importance, a substantial body of literature has emerged over the past two decades. Most. studies in this field have dealt with the measurement of service quality. Of these studies, the most prominent and widely used one is the SERVQUAL model developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry. Drawing on the model developed by Nitecki and Hernon, this thesis aimed to measure service quality of libraries. A questionnaire was prepared and applied in a university library in Turkey. From the total of 470 questionnaires distributed, 237 were returned as duly completed. The survey instrument exhibited a satisfactory level of internal reliability. The quadrant analysis and ANOVA tests were applied to reveal if there exist any differences between the perceptions of service quality and a number of characteristics of user groups. Then, the applicable and non-applicable features for library users were determined. The findings were presented visually in quadrant analysis and numerically in mean difference analysis. Considerable differences were found between expectations and perceptions of service quality. Detailed quadrant analysis was also undertaken for different user groups of the library. This analysis showed that there- exist differences of expectations and perceptions across various user groups. An attempt was also made to compare and contrast our results with those of other previous studies using SERVQUAL in libraries. Some similarities and dissimilarities were noted. Physical conditions were found to be the most important determinant of service quality for the users of Beykent University Library. The research in general served a very important communication channel between library users and library management. The open-ended questions on the questionnaire form and the complaints written on these forms created an opportunity to share information about the potential problems and searching for ways to solve them. VII