Library

Assessment Day 2007

Concerns:

The traditional Library Satisfaction section of the survey again gave the library high marks. Students were surveyed on their satisfaction with the library in general, with the library's collections, with library technology, with library equipment loans, and with the helpfulness of the library staff.

Of the respondants who expressed an opinion about satisfaction, in all categories over 95% of all respondants were either satisfied or very satisfied. In the category with the most dissatisfaction, library technology, there were 4.4% of respondants who were either dissatisfied (4.1%) or very dissatisfied (0.3%).

In the special section of the survey, dealing with the library's new web site, we asked about both frequency of use and satisfaction with various sections of the web site. We asked about satisfaciton with the library's catalog, with our links to other library catalogs, with the databases, with the periodicals titles list, with the Information for Students page, with the Course pages, with the electronic books and with the E-reference page. All parts of the web site received over 93% either satisfied or very satisfied. The area that caused the most dissatisfaction was the E-Reference section. Course pages and other library catalogs had the highest combined percentage of satisfied and very satisfied, while the databases had the highest rate of very satisfied.

Of the written comments regarding dissatisfaction, they tended to be that people used to know exactly where to click to get to their favorite resources, and they have to reestablish the path to those resources.

Improvements:

In the special section to check satisfaction with the library’s new website, the results were that, in general, there was high satisfaction with the new web site. Other than some minor adjustment to the E-Reference page, no change was deemed necessary to the new Library website.

An ancillary finding was the confirmation that the most heavily used resources are the Library’s Databases, and that they are used regularly by a large fraction of the student body. About a quarter of all students use the databases on a daily or weekly basis, and well over half use them at some time during the year. Confirmed also were the heavy use of the Library’s catalog and the Course Pages. A surprising observation was the heavy use of the “Information for Students” page. It was designed as an informational page rather than a main channel for access to library resources and services.

On the general survey, the most frequent comments from dissatisfied patrons dealt with hours and the size of the book collection. However, the negative comments in even the most frequent categories amounted to less than one percent of the participants in the survey. In the category of library technology, our proxy server has moved to a new server at the beginning of November, 2007, so we anticipate that the 2008 survey will have an even lower score in this area, because the performace of the old server created serious problems with service to our patrons through the first half of the Fall semester. This is a known problem that has now been repaired.

Assessment Day 2004

Concerns:

WSU students continued to be satisfied with the library. Overall it received a 96% satisfaction rating, the same as last year. Only 73 out of 2478 respondents were dissatisfied. Several subsections of the library were also rated. Every area received a higher rating than it did last year. Satisfaction with: staff helpfulness is 98%; computers and equipment is 98%; general satisfaction is 97% technology is 96%; and collections is 93%.

Of the 73 dissatisfied students, 25 did not give any reasons for the dissatisfaction. The remaining 48 gave a number of reasons. Some satisfied students also gave some constructive criticism to improve the library. The most cited reasons were: lack of adequate hours (32 mentions); lack of enough computers and peripherals (20 mentions); lack of children’s books (10 mentions); lack of group study rooms (10 mentions) and lack of network connections/working network connections (9 mentions).

 

Improvements:

Since Assessment Day the Library has:

    • Added 1 large group study room by reconfiguring office space. Seating is 12, with eight having power and network connections.
    • Added 12 study carrels in the Information Gallery. All carrels are wired for power and network. Six scanners are also installed.
    • Added another table with four networked computers to the public computing area.
    • Added six comfortable chairs and a table to create a waiting/lounge area by the public computing area.
    • Replaced the dry erase boards in all group study rooms (problems with the old boards were mentioned by two Assessment Day respondents).
    • Added Mac laptops, floppy drives, and LCD projectors for checkout.
    • Added DVD burners for laptop use.
    • Upgraded Information Gallery computers to have 19 inch monitors and DVD burners.

The library is also planning to add Apple webcams for the Information Gallery Macintosh computers.

The library is also now a wireless computing area. Since the new tablet laptops are wireless ready, many students can connect to the network anywhere there is seating.

Hours have not been lengthened and cannot be lengthened without additional funding for personnel.