Establishment of an Integrated Service Quality Index for University Libraries in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Measuring service quality has gained an immense interest in service organizations with no exception for academic libraries. Due to its complexity in definitions and variability of dimensions, the measuring of service quality in university libraries has become much more complicated. Although there are many powerful service quality measuring tools such as LibQUAL, SERVQUAL, SERVPERF, debates, and criticisms over existing service quality measuring tools argue that they are still unable to fully address the important dimensions of service quality because their approaches are one-sided: service provider focus or customer focus. For a fact, existing tools have ignored the contribution of resources capability dimension to the service quality. In this scenario, the benchmarking strategies to measure the quality becomes questionable in developing country environments. Many arguments show that the library service quality measure should follow a multidimensional procedure rather than the measuring of customer satisfaction. Especially the quality measures should be incorporated with the strategic utilization of resources and capabilities. This paper seeks the possibility of measuring the integrated service quality in university libraries through a multidimensional approach associated with both resource-capability measures and the perceived service quality by librarians (service providers) as well as service users. This conceptualization also leads to the proposed Integrated Service Quality Index for university libraries of Sri Lanka. The proposed conceptual model contains five key variables viz. competitive capabilities, dynamic capabilities, agility capabilities, provider-perceived quality, and user-perceived quality which are measured through five different questionnaires. The model was empirically tested with a sample of 2247 users and 91 library professionals randomly selected from eight state universities. Findings suggest that the library service quality measures should consider the resource capabilities in addition to perceived quality service users. Library professionals and decision-makers of the university can utilize this model and index to measure and increase the service quality level of the library. The quality measuring items were based on psychometric procedures. There can be a possible impact of localization.