Assessing desktop delivery service qualtiy at the University of Canterbury Library

Abstract

Electronic delivery of documents to the user's desktop is a service currently being introduced by Interlibrary Loan Departments of academic libraries in New Zealand. As there is often a discrepancy between librarians' and users' views of electronic services, it is important to measure the expectations its users have of the service, and whether it meets, or perhaps even exceeds them. We also need to find out which aspects of the service are of particular importance to the user, and to discover any common problems that may prevent people from using this service. In order to answer these questions, a survey of potential, current and past users of the desktop delivery service at the University of Canterbury Library was conducted. The data provide support for the research hypotheses. Ninety-nine percent of customers are aware of the desktop delivery service, but only sixty percent have tried using it. The overall quality of the desktop delivery service was assessed by customers at -0.71 (the SERVQUAL score), and 5.98 (overall quality mean), indicating a positive view of the service. While the Tangibles dimension has the largest gap at -1.37, Reliability and Responsiveness are generally of more importance to customers. Although the number of responses was too small to provide many meaningful comparisons between different groups of users, several groups were compared: Staff and Postgraduates; Arts and Science customers; Low, Medium and High Use groups; Low and High Quality groups. A number of problems having an impact on overall service quality assessment were identified. Keywords: service quality, customer satisfaction, SERVQUAL, desktop delivery service.