Having done a few user surveys in public libraries over the years, I found a reverse correlation of user satisfaction with the availability of resources and services. The poorer the library, the more satisfied the general public said they were. I decided it was a matter of expectations and understanding what was possible.
My cynical view now tends to discount user surveys and focus groups. Actual search logs with success rates would be much more informative. Unfortunately, there is still the problem of the patron that we are supposed to be serving that never gets to the catalog for any of a number of reasons. My favorite example is a district supervisor with the school system that would not use the library catalog or the free ERIC database for educational research because Google was "much better'. He went so far as to present this to teachers in a CE workshop on educational research, even after I showed him head to head searches on topics of his choice where Google resulted in basically junk results.
Received on Thu Jun 08 2006 - 11:55:05 EDT