Abstract:
Library systems are transforming into hybrid library systems that provide traditional and
electronic services with the rapid advancement in technology. For insightful planning towards
the benefit of the community, there is a need for continuous assessment of the effectiveness of
library services. Based on the above concept, this research proposes a multi-criteria decisionmaking
framework to evaluate the effectiveness of library services by investigating the
indicators of the library service. The study conducted a comprehensive literature review related
to the effectiveness of library services to identify, determine and suggest evaluation criteria that
can be affected the effectiveness. Ten key criteria and 45 measurement indicators were
identified after examining the names and definitions of the identified key criteria considering
synonyms and homonyms, which designed the basis of the evaluation framework abbreviated
LIBSEE (Library Service Effectiveness Evaluation). Furthermore, 10 subject experts, including
library science professionals, participated in formal and informal conversations to assess relative
relevance and guarantee that content validity meets the defined criteria and measurement
indicators. The contribution weightage of key criteria and measure indicators to the
effectiveness was examined with the help of experts in the field. The study employed Analytic
Hierarchy Process Multi-Criteria Decision-Making theories with the expectation of examining
the relative weightings. The framework was designed based on the key criteria, measuring
indicators, and their contribution to the effectiveness. Then the framework has converted to the
real-time web-based system that will produce the overall effectiveness score and scores
regarding each evaluation criteria. The effectiveness level of the services given by the library
network of the University of Ruhuna was evaluated to test the applicability and practicality of
the framework. The findings of this pilot study show that the proposed framework can assist
librarians in providing more effective library services. In contrast, the framework minimizes the
ambiguity and unclearness of human judgments due to Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
theories.
