Quality of Services Rendered by University Libraries: An Empirical Investigation

Libraries need to continuously monitor changing aspirations and expectations of users in order to tailor their service offerings. Intense competition offered by the e-resources has made it imperative for the libraries to continuously innovate or perish. In order to identify current status of satisfaction with the library services, a likert scale questionnaire containing 32 items on various aspects of service quality, adapted from SERVQUAL was administered to 100 users and 20 members of library staff of two universities in Punjab. Independent sample t-test, ANOVA, Pearson Correlation, Linear regression analysis were undertaken. Findings reveal no significant difference among library users on the basis of age, educational qualifications and gender. However, a significant difference lies between the users and the providers on various dimensions of service quality. Benchmarking against the best practices worldwide, involving various stakeholders, viz. users, staff, management, publishers and sponsors can help in improving quality of services rendered by libraries.