Analysis of LibQUAL+ scores for service quality assessment in academic libraries of Bangladesh

Abstract

This research investigated the service quality scores through LibQUAL+ attributes to find out the users’ thought of the services that a library might offer. This study additionally had a focus on improvement of services and strategic enhancement of academic libraries in Bangladesh. The assessment was conducted in six top-ranked university libraries in Bangladesh, i.e. University of Dhaka (DU), Rajshahi University (RU), Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), and Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB). Data were collected from the faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students. The research questions that framed the investigation were related to service adequacy, service superiority, service quality expectation, services in the tolerable areas, dimensionwise data reduction and validity of dimensions, and several significance differences by gender and individual user. Descriptive statistics, analysis of dimension reduction, and various nonparametric tests were conducted for different statistical measures. The investigation revealed the overall scenario of service performance through the perception of the users. Overall, the users considered the library service operations are far behind from the minimum level except for one library, i.e. IUBL. The study found that most perceived service scores are low; these affected the minimum acceptable service performance by the libraries. The study revealed that the desired expectations are high, which affected service adequacy and service superiority scores. Statistically significant differences were found by gender and individual user groups. For two libraries, i.e. RUL and BUETL, more dimensions were extracted, whereas IUBL data revealed only two dimensions. The three-dimensional factors were loaded for the remaining three libraries. In-spite of the variations observed with the dimensionalities, confirmatory factor analysis endured overall LibQUAL+ original dimensions. Based on these analyses, this research made recommendations for the strategic and operational improvement of the libraries.