User Satisfaction with Library Service: A Measure of Public Library Performance?

Abstract

The construct of user satisfaction, a user's self-reported degree of satisfaction with library services, is presumed to be a subjective measure of public library performance. It has been used to evaluate the performances of various services within a library; to measure, in general, a given library's overall level of performance and to compare this level of performance with those reported for other libraries. User satisfaction is also presumed to be positively related to the user's degree of library use. This paper reports the results of a survey of 623 patrons of a public library which demonstrate that (1) the construct is potentially useful for evaluating the performances of services within a library; (2) since the construct is affected by the demographic characteristics of the users, it should not be used to compare presumed levels of performance for libraries serving different communities; and (3) the construct is not related to the user's degree of library use.

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