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The Australian Library JournalValuing our clients: a report on the client survey at NSW Agriculture Library ServicesFiona Drum and Sally AndersonManuscript received September 2002 This is a refereed article IntroductionNSW Agriculture is a government department which provides 'wide-ranging research, extension, education and regulatory services to the state's 43 654 commercial farmers, graziers, horticulturalists, agribusiness and other groups that form the food and fibre producing, processing and marketing industries' (NSW Agriculture, 2001).
The Library Services Network of NSW Agriculture is made up of eight staffed libraries located at: The role of these libraries is to provide library and information services to departmental staff who are located in one hundred and five offices throughout the state. Each librarian is responsible for providing library services to a specific region which includes making regular visits to all remote offices. Library staff at Paterson and Yanco also serve the library and information needs of the student population of their respective colleges. All libraries are staffed by a professional librarian, who with one exception, CB Alexander College, have technical or clerical support staff. Services offered include reference services, literature searching, document supply and inter-library loans, training and technical support, journal circulation and desktop access to key resources. The Network Services Unit, staffed by the special services librarian and two support staff, located at Orange Agricultural Institute, supports the libraries with database and clerical services. The Network Services Unit also maintains the Department's archival collection. The geographical distribution of the Department's officers has necessitated the provision of information and library services from a distance. The survey described in this paper was designed '...to determine clients' views on the quality, relevance and importance of library services, and to use this information in subsequent strategic and tactical planning' (McCallum & Quinn, 2000). Our clients' attitude to changing technology and their adaptation to information in the electronic format was of particular interest. This paper describes the methodology and the results of the survey, and discusses the recommendations. A brief review of the literature concerning client surveys in libraries and information centres and the provision of library services in the distance mode is included. Our interest in conducting the survey was in gauging the effectiveness of the service offered to clients at all sites of NSW Agriculture and the level of adoption of technology to access these services. Literature reviewA similar exercise was undertaken in the late 1990s at La Trobe University in Victoria. Although an academic rather than special library, the methodology and findings of this study had direct relevance to our aims. A 'Client Needs Assessment' project was initiated in 1996 and was planned in two phases (La Trobe University, 1997). Phase 1, completed in 1997, used focus group methodology, as did NSW Agriculture. However, the La Trobe study used the data to design the survey delivered in Phase 2 in 1999 when 2000 questionnaires were sent to a representative sample of staff and students (La Trobe University, 1999). Respondents were asked to rate the importance of a range of specific services and then to consider a number of key indicators of service success and rate their level of satisfaction. The services that enabled users to make the most effective use of library resources, were those most frequently rated as important. The services similarly rated but which received the lowest levels of satisfaction included:
The discussion section of the La Trobe study does not elaborate on why these services generated the lowest levels of satisfaction. However the need to address these issues was recognised. A relevant survey in a special library was conducted by the CSIRO Wildlife and Ecology Library in 1997. In a brief paper presenting the findings, Missingham (1998) outlines the information ecology model adopted for the survey. In this new model, proposed by Davenport and Prusak (1997), a complex relationship of information with all organisational participants is assumed. Within this information ecology, data is collected about information priorities and client requirements. Data on perceptions of the library's performance is also measured. The survey undertaken by CSIRO had the following aims:
The CSIRO survey had similar objectives to that conducted by NSW Agriculture. It is interesting to note that in the CSIRO survey, age group rather than length of service in the organisation was used as a criterion. Significant differences by scientific field were found in the priorities and performance of various library services. The NSW Agriculture survey included staff from both scientific and non-scientific occupations. In their final report, McCallum and Quinn (2000) comment '...it is clear that by reducing the time scientific and specialist staff need to spend finding information, more time is available for them to apply to meeting Departmental objectives...'. Tenopir and King (2000), in their monograph reviewing the evolution of electronic journals, also comment on the value of scientists' time and add that '...any system innovations and service decisions should take [this] into serious consideration ...'. NSW Agriculture's survey attempts to gauge the impact of electronic resources on clients' time so that services can be provided in the most beneficial manner. Tenopir and King (2000) also note a number of trends over the past two decades that merit consideration, these include:
The provision of library services to distant users remains a topic of continuing interest and relevance in the digital age. In the broadest sense, it covers the issue of 'flexible delivery' as undertaken by educational institutions. Recent papers by McPherson (2001), Fletcher and Stewart (2001) and Vassie (1999) outline deliberate moves by libraries to become active partners in the learning and delivery process. The crucial point of McPherson's paper is that as users become more sophisticated in their ability to access online information, they expect to find the material they are seeking within one or two mouse clicks. NSW Agriculture staff will also expect web resources to be organised to enable a similar level of accessibility. Fletcher and Stewart (2001) emphasise the importance of working with other players, in their case online course designers and academic staff, in aligning library services to users needs. Vassie (1999) makes a key point (in the context of universities) that remote users should have similar levels of access to information resources as do on-campus users. NSW Agriculture is moving towards a more active role in distance learning and the Library Service plans a pivotal role. Questions in the survey reflect our interest in the effectiveness of training offered by Library Services. In addition, there is continual concern about how our clients use the library webpages and how effective they are as a tool for accessing library services; we see online delivery of library services as vital. MethodologyA total of 1393 questionnaires were distributed to selected participants as e-mail attachments. The recipients included 'all professional officers, technical officers, technical assistants, regulatory officers... and selected staff from special groups ... senior managers and members of the Senior Executive Service.' Collected returns numbered 588, representing a forty-two per cent response rate. These were loaded into an Inmagic DB/Textworks database for analysis. The questionnaire was divided into four sections:
ResultsSection one: GeneralThe survey discovered that most clients felt they had a good understanding of what library services were available and as a result gave the library a very high approval rating. Respondents also placed a high value on library services. In answer to the survey question asking clients if they knew who was the librarian responsible for their location, it became apparent that librarians have achieved a high profile, with eighty-seven per cent of respondents knowing which librarian was responsible for providing library services to their location. As expected, the negative responses mostly came from sites without a staffed library. Just four highly valued services attracted over half of all responses. These were: inter-library loan; electronic (desktop) access to journals; current awareness, and searching. As well as valuing these services highly, clients also gave them a high quality rating which suggested that these services were delivered effectively to clients. Section two: specific servicesWhen determining the value and importance of specific services, electronic products and services continually returned high usage and value results except for library web pages, which had a low level of awareness. Clients asked for a range of information they would like to see on the library web pages including climate data, soil types and maps, statistics, and links to authoritative sites. Some of this information is already available which indicates a need for more promotion of the library web pages. Respondents felt confident in their ability to use Current Contents Search and the internet, however there were a significant number who indicated a need to review their current awareness services and who asked for assistance with a number of products and services. Training and technical support by librarians was predominantly rated as either high or medium value. Overall, clients felt their current awareness needs were met very well or satisfactorily and many asked for more information about the products and services listed in the questionnaire. Respondents were given the opportunity to suggest resources which needed updating, as well as new services which the library could provide. Their suggestions have since proven invaluable for librarians when developing and improving library services. Some clients used these open-ended questions to make positive comments. These included: 'The services are first class and this is of great assistance in the planning, conduct and report of my research', and 'a good coverage now; often the library service helps by suggesting other services that might be useful'. As an indication of high client use of electronic services, the preferred method of receiving information about new library developments and new products and services was by e-mail. Clients still like the personal touch with the next most popular mode of delivery being face-to-face discussions with library staff including site visits. Section three: about youThe Library Services Network used questions such as the client's work location, work area and length of employment, to discover more about their respondents. These results were then cross-referenced with their use of library services, their degree of comfort with using electronic mode of delivery, and with any other issues they had about the availability or response time when accessing library services via the intranet. There was also a question inviting comments on the library service, many of which produced interesting and supportive responses. We found that a majority of respondents were either reasonably or very comfortable with the trend towards electronic delivery of library services. Over a third of these respondents had less than five years of service. At the other end of the scale there was a significant number of employees with over thirty years of service who were also comfortable with the move to electronic service delivery. Apart from using electronic library service, respondents' other usage of electronic information centred on e-mail, external websites, and newsletters/journals. This may have implications for training and development of skills in using databases. Some clients had problems with outdated computer hardware and software and slow response times affecting their use of electronic library services. The final question gave respondents an opportunity to make any other comments they wished about the Library Service. Comments ranged across the spectrum of library services, including funding issues, journal subscription cutbacks, staffing of libraries, to suspicion that the survey was a prelude to funding cuts. 'For every unfavourable comment there were sixteen favourable comments. Of the 209 (responses), 115 ... expressed appreciation for library services and support for library staff. (Respondents) were keen to express their views on the importance of the Library service' (McCallum & Quinn, 2000). A number of respondents cited lack of time as the reason for not using library services, while others commented on the importance of visits by librarians. Section four: optional informationHere respondents had the chance to ask their librarian to contact them, with twenty-five percent of respondents making this request. Slightly more than half of this number came from locations without an on-site staffed library; this represented an excellent opportunity for librarians to undertake one-to-one training using the survey as a starting point. In the six months following the September 2000 survey, librarians contacted all these clients resulting in further positive feedback for the library network. Discussion'The purpose of the [NSW Agriculture Library Client Survey] was to determine clients' views on the quality, relevance and importance of library services, and to use this information in subsequent strategic and tactical planning.' (McCallum & Quinn, 2000) The Library Services Network Service is 'absolutely essential to the successful conduct of NSW Agriculture activities, and for the staff to function effectively in their roles' enthused one respondent in the Library Client Survey. This sentiment was frequently expressed in this survey and in the preceding focus groups. With the high participation rate (forty-two per cent) and 624 written comments, NSW Agriculture was able to achieve the first part of the purpose of the survey to a considerable extent. It found there is a very good satisfaction rate (ninety-one per cent) with library services. Clients were very satisfied with services which kept them up-to-date with developments in their fields. The level of training and technical support needs to be increased. Even though well over half (sixty-nine per cent) of respondents valued training and technical support services as medium to high value, there is still room for improvement. These are very encouraging results for the Library Services Network which has been proactive in offering these services in the expectation that clients would value them once they were trained in their use. Now that we have these results we can target our training to particular areas of concern. The survey reiterated the value of NSW Agriculture's distributed model of library service, as outlined in the introduction. Librarians are located at major research centres, eight in total, where there are greater numbers of staff. These research staff are more likely to need a higher level of library service. This model is unusual in government departments and is a strength of the service. The opportunity to interact with scientific staff on a daily basis increases librarians' awareness of their client needs and interests. Network librarians were not surprised to find clients chose, and highly valued, the following four services:
Library staff had long suspected that the above services were the ones clients valued by the quantity of document delivery work, the uptake of the use of electronic services and the requests received for personalised training. Document deliveryDocument delivery is one of the essential services of the Library Services Network. Research clients commented in the survey that without the full range of document delivery which gave them access to information, they could not continue with their work. Statistics of document delivery collected within the Library Services Network reveal that NSW Agriculture is a net borrower rather than lender; document delivery requests have increased in recent years. This can be attributed to reduced journal circulation and wider access at the desktop to Current Contents Search and retrospective databases. Since the survey, the library service has introduced a system of feedback to ensure that clients are informed of progress of their requests if they are not filled within a certain time frame. Since document delivery is highly valued, it is vital requests are filled promptly. Desktop access to electronic journals and databasesThe eighty-four per cent of respondents comfortable with the trend towards desktop information delivery validated the decision to adopt this delivery mode as the most efficient way of ensuring clients spread over a large geographic area have access to sources of information. The Library Services Network has continued to add to the range of resources available at the desktop, confident now that clients are very receptive to this mode of delivery; it remains for the librarians to ensure clients are conversant with services provided in this manner. Current awareness servicesThe services currently offered appear to be meeting the needs of those clients taking advantage of them. However, the survey indicated there was scope for promotion of these services to those clients who are not using current awareness services; often they are surprised at the scope of electronic journals available at their desktop. Once again, it is a question of promotion of the service. Since the survey, librarians have also put an emphasis on ensuring Current Contents Search profiles are refined and remain pertinent to the needs of the client. Personalised technical trainingThe high value clients placed on personalised technical training at their desktop, represents an opportunity for librarians. Procite is widely used by scientists in NSW Agriculture for the management of citations however librarians were not involved in delivering training in this package. Clients indicated a desire for such training, which was to have been offered by the education and training unit of NSW Agriculture and as a result of the survey findings, the decision has been made for the librarians to become trainers in this software package. NSW Agriculture has a record of supporting library staff training. In addition to staff training and development courses, librarians and their support staff are also encouraged to pursue further formal education and, as a necessary requirement of their positions, to undertake training in new technologies and new information resources as they become available. This policy is paying dividends. In the survey librarians are seen as competent trainers with the skills to provide technical support in information technologies. The survey found that clients know which librarian is responsible for library services in their region. This highlights the high profile of library services and the reliance clients have on their librarians. It does not, however, mean that library staff can become complacent. Promotion of services is an ongoing commitment and critical to the effectiveness of the service. To ensure early contact with new staff, librarians acquaint themselves with staff movements and new staff appointments so they can introduce them to library services. More than twenty-five per cent of respondents requested librarians contact them for further training assistance with electronic services. This illustrates the need clients have for those services. Survey recommendationsThe Survey Final Report lists twenty-six recommendations which give the Library Services Network ample scope to improve services. Indeed, one of the first recommendations is to develop a Strategic Plan which ensures library services remain aligned to the corporate goals of NSW Agriculture. This recommendation covers the second part of the survey's purpose, which is to use the information collected in the survey for strategic planning. It goes further by recommending enhancements to existing services and initiation of new services. One of the major issues, according to McCallum and Quinn, is to ensure that funding is provided on a continuing basis and at an adequate level, in effect, to enable the Library Services Network to reach its potential of fully supporting the research effort. Ideally, it should be seen as a collaborative partner in the research effort. The Library Service Strategic Plan has now been prepared and is closely aligned to the recommendations in the survey report. The plan was finalised and ready for implementation in July 2002. It addresses all twenty-six recommendations arising from the survey and proposes actions to address the recommendations. The current expansion of alerting services is also part of the recommendation to offer high value-added services. These alerting services currently include Salinity Alert, Management Alert, Education Alert and the new Extension Alert. Exotics Alert is still in the planning stage. Extension Alert is designed to address the specific needs of extension staff in the Department while Exotics Alert will cover exotic pests and diseases of both plants and animals. A number of the recommendations arising from survey findings covered suggestions for improvements to services. These recommendations are being addressed with a variety of mechanisms. For example, the enhancement of current awareness services has involved each librarian ensuring that clients' subject profiles are updated and the scope of full-text electronic journals is monitored so clients have access to all relevant titles. Issues which need to be resolved include who should manage the information assets (data sets, project records, unpublished reports, and individual collections) created by staff of the department. If it is decided the library is responsible, then resources must be allocated to allow for the management and storage of these assets. The Library Services Network aims to be proactive at all times or, at the very least, rapidly reactive. It needs the flexibility to enable it to access information quickly in the event of an urgent demand, for example in the case of an outbreak of an exotic disease. Despite the trend towards use of electronic services it is clear that surveyed clients still appreciate the personal interaction with librarians. They want to see librarians visiting their workplaces, whether it is the adjacent office or the regional office in Broken Hill. This is reflected in the request for more training and technical support. McCallum and Quinn recommend client training continue on both a group and individual basis at introductory and refresher levels. As one client commented in the survey '...we are fortunate to have very helpful library staff who display great patience when dealing with non-electronic people in an electronic age!' It is also important to maintain that human link to ensure clients feel comfortable with making inquiries and requesting technical assistance. When visiting clients at their workplace librarians often work on a one-to-one basis updating subject profiles, determining resource needs and highlighting relevant services. Often it is only through direct conversation that librarians are able to establish what services a client needs. The librarian can then set up current awareness services that directly target client's work interests; these are highly valued. Since the survey, librarians have made arrangements to visit all their sites at least once every six months and to notify clients of the dates of forthcoming visits so that they can also plan for these visits. There are some groups (senior management, human resources and information technology) within NSW Agriculture, which traditionally have low levels of library usage, due either to time constraints or lack of knowledge of relevant library resources. Targeted library promotion to these clients would be invaluable in raising awareness of library services with a subsequent increase in library usage, but whilst the report recommends targeting these groups it is a challenge to support their needs given that library funds are so fully utilised for the core areas of scientific research and extension. The library service recognised that survey respondents were likely to be predisposed to be library users, so that awareness of library services may have been higher among respondents than among all potential users. More library promotion could increase usage amongst the twenty-eight per cent of respondents who indicated only a partial awareness of library services. New staff are targeted by librarians to alert them to the range of library and information services available. Librarians contact new staff to arrange an introductory session, in addition to the general induction process where newcomers are notified of the availability of library services and, at sites where there is a staffed library, are shown to the library and introduced to library staff. The library web pages are a product of training and considerable planning and development by librarians. However they suffer from lack of promotion, according to survey results. While twenty-five per cent of respondents 'never' used these web pages, the forty-seven per cent who did found them 'fairly easy' to use. There was strong client support for a range of information to be added to the web pages and for links to authoritative sources. It also shows that clients are interested in using the web pages as sources of information. The web page design is successful in that clients found them easy to use - they just need to know about them. Training tutorials, notices of new publications and reviews of new publications would enhance the existing pages according to McCallum and Quinn. These recommendations have been implemented in the form of New Book lists from which users can generate loans on-line at their desktop. Feedback is always a vital component of increasing library support and client usage and the Library Services Network must notify clients of the initiatives taken in response to the findings of the survey. An example of this is an e-mailed library newsletter called Sites & Cites, which was first published in February 2001 and has been well received. Apart from the obvious promotional opportunities these initiatives have, clients will also feel that their participation in the survey and focus groups was valued. This has a significant goodwill effect and will enhance their trust in the library service. ConclusionThis survey raised many issues but in many ways it also validated the work the Library Services Network has been doing. A number of clients expressed their heavy reliance on currently used library services to the extent that they would be unable to do their work without them. They expressed appreciation for the delivery model which ensures all clients, wherever they are located geographically, have access to information and library services. Some survey respondents were concerned that this survey might be used to justify reductions in library services: 'Please, no more cutbacks to this essential research tool called Library Services!'; 'Libraries are very important and must be kept up to date. It is important ... not to let the resources of a library fall away. Libraries and their staff are needed'; 'Deepest sympathies for the cut backs, an affront to progress in research'; 'I trust that this survey is not being undertaken to provide ... a rationale to reduce the operating budget of the Library Service'. These highlight the high value they place on library services. NSW Agriculture Library Services Network strives to be responsive to and anticipate client needs by being forward looking and change-oriented. The survey provides excellent insights into client needs. It supplies us with valuable opportunities to target services directly to clients and further develop our important role in servicing the information needs of NSW Agriculture. As a direct result of the survey a number of initiatives have been adopted. An increased frequency of visits by librarians to regional locations using a schedule adopted six months ahead. In particular research centres are targeted for additional visits to ensure researchers have access to, and are able to effectively use, online services. Regional clients appreciate these visible efforts by librarians to keep in touch with their needs. Library staff are acutely aware of the lessons learnt from the survey and have a clearer picture of the direction that needs to be taken to provide an enhanced, dynamic and relevant service to all clients. The last word must go to this fervent client: 'The library is the heart and soul of an effective organisation. It is the storehouse of what we have achieved and it is the resource to assist us to go forward.' AcknowledgmentsThe authors thank Libraries Alive! for reviewing this paper. The assistance and encouragement given by Marilyn Hawkett, library services manager, is also gratefully acknowledged as is that of all NSW Agriculture staff involved in the distribution, collection and implementation of the survey recommendations. ReferencesDavenport, T & Prusak, L (1997) Information ecology: mastering the information and knowledge environment. New York: Oxford University Press Fletcher, J & Stewart, D (2001) 'The Library: An active partner in online learning and teaching' Australian Academic and Research Libraries 32 (3): 214-221 Hawkett, M (2000) Minutes from the NSW Agriculture Library Services Network Meeting, Wollongbar, 15-19 May 2000. La Trobe University (1997) Client needs assessment report: Phase 1, http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/publications/bf-cnareport97.html#execsumm (Accessed 6 September 2002) La Trobe University (1999) Client needs assessment report - Phase 2 http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/publications/jf-cnar00.html (Accessed via internet Explorer Ver.5 6 September 2002) McCallum, I & Quinn, S (2000) NSW Department of Agriculture Library Services Client Survey. Final Report. Canberra: Libraries Alive! P/L McPherson, M (2001) 'Position and purpose: situating the library in a webbed world'. Australian Academic and Research Libraries 32 (3): 165-176 Missingham, R (1998) 'A science library survey - CSIRO Wildlife and Ecology'. Australian Special Libraries 31 (2): 27-31 New South Wales Agriculture (2001) Annual report 2000/2001. Orange, NSW: NSW Agriculture. New South Wales Agriculture Information & Library Service (2002) Strategic plan July 2002-June 2004. (Internal document) Tenopir, C & King, DW Towards electronic journals. Realities for scientists, librarians and publishers. Washington: Special Libraries Association, 2000 Vassie, R (1999) Meeting the document supply needs of distance learners. Interlending and Document Supply 27 (4): 154-157. Biographical information Fiona Drum is regional librarian, Tamworth Centre for Crop Improvement, RMB 944, Tamworth NSW 2340; Sally Anderson is regional librarian, Trangie Agricultural Research Centre, PMB 19, Trangie NSW 2823 |
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