Chapter 2Review of Related LiteratureIntroductionAcademic libraries are facing two major threats : a global digital environment and increasing competition. They must improve the quality of their services in order to survive. (Rowena Cullen, 2001) Traditionally, the quality of an academic library has been described in terms of its collection and measured by the size of the library’s holding and various counts of its use. ( Danuta A. Nitecki , 1996) According to Peter Hernon and Ellen Altman , most of traditional statistics gathered by libraries lack relevance and do not measure the library’s performance in terms of element important to customers. They do not really describe performance or indicatewhether service quality is good, indifferent, or bad. Even worse, the do not indicate any action that the administration or any team could or should take to improve performance. ( Perter Hernon & Ellen Altman , 1998) The need to understand what library customers expect in terms of service quality is now necessary for good management. ( Philip Calvert, 2000) so the library managers should extend the profitable way to assess library service quality. In business industries, SERVQUAL is an alternative instrument proposed to measure service quality from customer perspectives and perhaps it has been the most popular standardized questionnaire to measure service quality. ( Albert Caruna, Michael T. Ewing & B. Ramaseshan) In the library setting, SERVQUAL was used to assess library quality service continually and it seems that culture of assessment in libraries had strong international dimensions as there is much potential for international collaboration on assessing library service quality. ( Martha Kyrillidou & Kaylyn Hipps,2000 ).History of SERVQUALSERVQUAL was introduced in 1988 by A. Parasuraman , Valarie A. Zeithaml and Leonard L. Berry as an instrument for assessing customer perceptions of service quality in service and retailing organization. ( A. Parasuraman, et al., 1988) It was consisted of 22 pairs of statements ,the first of which measure the expectations of a service provider’s customers by asking each respondent to rate, on a seven-point scale, how essential each item is for an excellent service provider to deliver. The second set to 22 identical statements ascertains the respondent’sperceptions to the level of service given by the institution or organization examined. For each pair of statements, the difference between the ranked perception and the ranked expectation is calculated; the average of the gap scores is the SERVQUAL overall quality score. ( Danuta A. Nitecki and Peter Hernon, 2000). The designers also developed the Gaps model of service quality and the definitions of each of the gap are as follows : Gap 1: The discrepancy between customers’ expectations and management’s perceptions of these expectations;Gap 2: The discrepancy between management’s perceptions of customers’ expectations and service quality specifications ;Gap 3: The discrepancy between service quality specifications and actual service delivery;Gap 4: The discrepancy between actual service delivery and what is communicated to customers about it; andGap 5: The discrepancy between Customers’ expected services and perceived service delivered. The first four gaps are the major contributors to the service-quality gap that customers may perceive. The fifth gap is the basis of a customer-oriented definition of service quality: the discrepancy between customers’ expectations for excellence, and their perceptions of actual service delivered. This discrepancy is the conceptual basis for the SERVQUAL instrument. ( Danuta A. Nitecki, 1996) The narrower the gap is, the better service quality is provided so the managers have to reduce Gap 5 as smallest as they can in order to provide excellent service to their customers.To test the data by factor analysis, the designers concluded that SERVQUAL was consisted of 5 dimensions as follows:Tangibles : Physical facilities, equipment, an appearance of personnel.Reliability : Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.Responsiveness : Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.Assurance : Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence.Empathy : Caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers. Later, A. Parasuraman , Valarie A. Zeithaml, and Leonard L. Berry revised SERVQUAL to ask respondents to rate statements from three contexts ( minimum service expectations, desired service expectations, and the perception of service performance) On a continuum, the minimum and desired service expectations appear at either end, with the area in between known as the Zone of Tolerance. The zone of tolerance represents the range of service performance that customers consider satisfactory. ( Peter Hernon, 2002) According to Johnson ( 1995) Berry andParasuraman defined the zone of tolerance in terms of the customer’s evaluation of inprocess
service performances ( Robert Johnson, 1995) :The zone of tolerance is a range of service performance that a customer considers satisfactory. A performance below the tolerance zone will engender customer frustration and decrease customer loyalty. A performance level above the
tolerance zone will pleasantly surprise customers and strengthen their loyalty.The importance of the zone of tolerance was clarified by Marketing consultants for MCB University Press (2000) : Consumers have two different level of expectations for service quality : desired level and one they find adequate. A “ Zone of Tolerance ” separates the two. The managers should measure both levels of expectations because the service providers can fine-tune the way they allocate resources by incorporating the zone of tolerance framework. For example, a service provider with limited resources can improve customers’ perceptions of service quality by making improvements to meet consumer’s minimum expectation levels on the most essential attributes first. The service provider can then devote more resources and attention to less essential attributes, and/or to better meeting desired standards.
SERVQUAL in Library Setting
The researchers of various subject areas contribute and adapt SERVQUAL as the instrument to assess service quality and also in library setting. SERVQUAL has been used in public, academic and research libraries continually. According to Rowena Cullen ( See Cullen(2001), for a useful review) the modification of SERVQUAL model was introduced to academic library managers by Hernon and Altman . They used the data collected from surveys and focus groups to refine the SERVQUAL model in order to develop a robust survey instrument for use specifically in library and information services. Two later research projects have tested the validity of the standard instrument used in the SERVQUAL model. Nitecki’s doctoral research tested the SERVQUAL instrument on the three aspects of library service- interlibrary loan, reference, and closed-reserve and concluded that the instrument was useful in determining how well services match user expectations. Hernon and Calvert tested the validity of the SERVQUAL instrument for evaluating academic libraries among library students and librarians, and came up with an instrument based on SERVQUAL.
Now, there is much potential for international collaboration on assessing library service quality as seen from a cross-cultural study comparing perceptions of service quality among library users in New Zealand and China and unequivocally concluded that there are global commonalities in the way users think about library service quality.( Kyrillidou and Hipps,2001)
Using SERVQUAL for Library Service Quality Assessment in Thailand
In Thailand, the first library service quality assessment by using SERVQUAL was conducted by Surithong Srisa-ard (1997) for the fulfillment of her doctoral dissertation “ User Expectations and Perceptions of Library Service Quality of An Academic Library in Thailand” . The survey was set at an academic library at Mahasarakham University (MSU) Thailand, to examined user expectations and perceptions of library service quality. The survey focused on three services areas : a) circulation; b) reference; and c) computer information service. The instrument is a
Thai translation of the SERVQUAL instrument as adapted by Danuta Ann Nitecki for use in academic libraries. A follow-up survey of library staff based on the findings of the SERVQUAL instrument was developed by the researcher to prioritize actions for service improvement. The subjects of this study consisted of 582 graduate students, 84 faculty members of Mahasarakham University, and 25 professional library staff members.
Presently, academic libraries in Thailand have faced the same situations as most academic libraries in the world such as money cutback, digital environment, and have to involve in some form of evaluation caused by the policy of the educational quality assurance. The library managers have to seek the better way to improve the service quality in order to survive and derive user’s loyalty. Concept of Service quality for Library assessment Service quality was defined in different ways but for the concept of service quality that use for library evaluation is “ to examine the difference between a customer’s expectations and the customer’s perceived sense to actual performance.” ( Calvert, 2001) Philip J. Calvert and Peter Hernon also mentioned that : “Most typically, service quality is defined in terms of reducing the gap
between user expectations and actual service provided ” ( Philip J. Calvert and Peter Hernon, 1997)
Though there is ambiguity between the concept of service quality and satisfaction, Peter Hernon concluded that “ service quality focuses on the interaction between customers and service providers, and the gap or difference between expectations about service prov
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