The document summarizes the findings of a customer satisfaction survey conducted at the Faculty of Philosophy Library in Osijek, Croatia. A questionnaire was distributed to students and faculty to assess satisfaction with library services, holdings, staff, and facilities. Overall satisfaction was higher among faculty than students. By field of study, Education and English language students reported the highest satisfaction while Psychology and Philosophy reported the lowest. This was the first systematic effort to measure customer satisfaction at the library.

1. The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1467-8047.htm
Customer satisfaction at
the Faculty of Philosophy Library
in Osijek, Croatia
Kornelija Petr Balog
Department of Information Sciences, Faculty of Philosophy,
Osijek, Croatia, and
Bernardica Plasˇc´ak
Library, Faculty of Philosophy, Osijek, Croatia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of the customer satisfaction survey of
the Faculty of Philosophy in Osijek Library. The purpose of the survey was to determine the level of
satisfaction among two customer groups: students and faculty.
Design/methodology/approach – The methodology utilised was a five-page satisfaction
questionnaire.
Findings – This paper presents the findings of the first customer satisfaction survey of the Faculty of
Philosophy in Osijek Library. The satisfaction data are collected as a part of a wider library evaluation
program and present the first step in future continuous measurement of customers’ expectations and
their satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications – The structure and the size of the sample do not secure the
representativeness. Among the student population, the paper was distributed only to those who
visited the library, which, in a way, reduces the validity of the sample (those who are dissatisfied with
library services may avoid the library). Among the faculty, the survey was distributed via e-mail, but
some faculty members do not check their e-mail accounts regularly (or not at all).
Originality/value – This is the first measurement of customer satisfaction for the Faculty of
Philosophy in Osijek Library. Furthermore, there are only a few similar papers that report on research
in Croatian libraries in international literature.
Keywords Library satisfaction survey, Academic library, Faculty of Philosophy in Osijek, Croatia,
Customer satisfaction, Library users
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
One of the probably most complicated phenomena connected with measuring library
quality is the issue of customer satisfaction. It is counted among subjective or soft
measures as indicators of quality (Hayes, 1997). They are soft because they are based
on perceptions and attitudes, rather than on objective, hard, criteria. This is partly the
reason why there are so many problems with measurement and interpretation of
customer satisfaction today.
So far, there are many papers that report the findings of library satisfaction surveys
across the world (see, for instance, D’Elia and Walsh, 1983; Perkins and Yuan, 2001;
Hiller, 2001; Martensen and Grønholdt, 2003; Morales et al., 2011; Cook et al., 2003;
Saunders, 2008), but we were not able to find that many papers that deal with this topic
in Croatia. It is true that libraries in Croatia are now well aware of the importance of
performance measurement of their activities. There have been several conferences and
meetings on this topic[1], there is a research project Evaluation of library services:
academic and public libraries funded by Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and
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Received 27 January 2012
Accepted 27 February 2012
Performance Measurement and
Metrics
Vol. 13 No. 2, 2012
pp. 74-91
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1467-8047
DOI 10.1108/14678041211241305

2. Sports[2] and finally, research into library satisfaction, although not as frequent as in
some of the other countries whose libraries have a well-developed culture of
assessment, is slowly taking off [3]. Croatian authors from both public and academic
library environments, have started investigating this topic and reporting on it since
the end of the last century and so far there are several papers that investigate library
satisfaction (Pavlinic´ and Horvat, 1998; Petr, 2000; S ˇ
apro-Ficovic´, 2000; Cvetnic´
Kopljar, 2002; Dukic´ et al., 2009; Novak, 2010). However, these investigations have been
sporadic with no systematic approach in measuring customer satisfaction until to now,
but the situation, especially regarding academic libraries, has recorded change for the
better. Croatia signed the Bologna declaration in 2001 and this has marked the
beginning of profound changes and the reform in the area of Croatian higher education.
Among other things, the Bologna process in Croatia has placed the quality of higher
education in the limelight of the interest of academic community, especially the funding
agencies. According to the new Law on Quality Assurance in Science and Higher
Education (Zakon je o osiguravanju kvalitete u znanosti i visokom, 2005) all HE
institutions in Croatia must undergo the process of external evaluation. There are
consequences for institutions that do not conform to standards of quality, the most
severe of them all is the withdrawal of the licence for operation of the whole institution
or some of its programs of study. This was a massive “wake-up call” for academic
libraries and many of them started thinking about the level of quality of their present
services, and ways how to efficiently measure and improve them.
This paper presents the part of the findings of the first attempt to systematically
collect information about customer satisfaction[4] by the Faculty of Philosophy in
Osijek Library (FPOL). This is important for our institution because the library plans
to collect customers’ opinions systematically in the future. In addition the findings of
this survey were processed and analyzed promptly and report was published at
library’s web page.
2. The FPOL
The Faculty of Philosophy in Osijek (FPO[5] offers nine undergraduate, 12 graduate[6]
and two postgraduate teaching programs. In the academic year 2009/2010 the student
population consisted of 824 undergraduate students and 533[7] graduate students
while the faculty comprised of 134 full-time and 123 part-time teaching staff.
The FPOL with its holdings (65,000 items of book materials, 1,500 items of non-book
materials and 3,000 volumes of periodicals) and three reading rooms occupies an area
of 338m2. The collection building policy aims to follow undergraduate and graduate
teaching programs with primary emphasis on humanities and social sciences.
Aware of its inadequacies in terms of space, information resources and in particular
of information technology, and yet determined to comply with its mission to meet the
teaching, science and research information needs of the students and teaching staff, the
library tried to identify its current strengths and weaknesses by conducting a survey of
user satisfaction with the library services and their expectations about its services.
This is the first survey in a series which will be conducted every two to three years.
Since the last survey of the user satisfaction, which was conducted in 1998
(Petr, 2000, 2001), some important developments have influenced its services and users.
The library was refurbished in 2008: the reading room was divided into a separate
reading room for quiet study and reading room for group study; a bigger part of library
holdings has been placed on open stacks accessible for users, and library services have
been publicized on the library web site which also contains the library’s OPAC.
Customer
satisfaction
75

3. 3. Faculty of philosophy library user satisfaction survey: academic year
2009/2010
3.1 Research objectives
The goal of the new user satisfaction survey, conducted in academic year 2009/2010,
was to identify user satisfaction with:
. library services (information service, interlibrary loan, responsiveness to
inquiries, library instruction);
. library holdings (across several collections);
. library staff; and
. research conditions in the library (space, equipment, etc.).
3.2 Research methodology, instrument and sample
This paper analyzes some of the most interesting findings of satisfaction survey
conducted in spring 2010 for the undergraduate and graduate students, and from
spring to autumn 2010 for the faculty. The surveys were e-mailed to the faculty staff on
two occasions, in spring and autumn 2010, whereas the students (undergraduate,
graduate and postgraduate) were asked to fill in the paper version of the survey in the
library. The paper concentrates on questions that dealt with customer satisfaction with
various aspects of library service as well as their expected level of quality for these
aspects.
Collected data were processed by SPSS package using descriptive statistics and
quadrant analysis.
Several points must be pointed out regarding our methodology:
. anonymity – the faculty were e-mailed the survey with the instruction to fill it
out, print it and bring to the library so that the anonymity of answers were
preserved, but a part of the faculty waived the anonymity and just e-mailed their
answers back; student anonymity was better preserved since they filled out the
paper version of the survey; and
. representativeness – whereas we may speculate on the representativeness of the
faculty sample because all the faculty members received the survey through
their e-mail accounts and just had to decide whether they wanted to participate
in the research or not[8], we could not do so with the student population. Not all
of them were offered the chance to take part in this survey as only those
members of the student population who came to the library in the specific period
of time were eligible for inclusion into the survey. Some may argue that in this
way we influenced higher scoring on the satisfaction questions since those
dissatisfied with library services tend to avoid the library and look for
information somewhere else. Furthermore, the number of participants in this
survey fell short of the number recommended by Van House et al. (1990)[9]. At
first we feared that the faculty would be the weak link and provide the fewest
answers, but it turned out that this was the group that was best represented in
the sample: we reached 40 members of the faculty (or 29.85 percent). Next come
the undergraduate students (176 respondents or 21.36 percent). They are
followed by graduate students (78 respondents or 14.63 percent) (Tables I-IV).
Certain data in Table I do not correspond to the percentages of student or faculty[10]
population implying uneven distribution of the questionnaires since the sample was
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4. Students/fields of study – undergraduate
Population,
n(%)
Respondents,
n(%)
LIS 120(14.56) 33(18.75)
Psychology 119(14.44) 18(10.23)
Croatian language and literature 108(13.11) 29(16.48)
German language and literature 84(10.19) 12(6.82)
Croatian language and literature and English language and
literature 53(6.43) 15(8.52)
English language and literature and German language and literature 50(6.07) 8(4.54)
Croatian language and literature and history 45(5.46) 17(9.66)
Philosophy and education 45(5.46) 6(3.41)
History and education 44(5.34) 10(5.68)
History and philosophy 28(3.40) 5(2.84)
English language and literature and philosophy 27(3.28) 7(3.98)
English language and literature and history 20(2.43) 2(1.14)
Hungarian language and literature and English language and
literature 19(2.31) 0(0.00)
Croatian language and literature and German language and
literature 16(1.94) 4(2.27)
English language and literature and education 16(1.94) 0(0.00)
Croatian language and literature and education 11(1.33) 4(2.27)
Croatian language and literature and philosophy 11(1.33) 3(1.70)
Hungarian language and literature and Croatian language and
literature 6(0.73) 1(0.57)
Hungarian language and literature and history 2(0.24) 0(0.00)
Historya 0(0.00) 1(0.57)
English language and literatureb 0(0.00) 1(0.57)
Total 824(99.99) 176(100.00)
Notes: aAlthough the possibility to study history on its own did not exist as a graduate program in
this academic year, one respondent, obviously an older student, identified himself/herself as a history
student; bthe same goes for one respondent who specified only English language and literature,
although such program was not offered in this academic year
random. Tables I-IV bring detailed data about our sample. Broken down by study
groups, the best response rate came from the graduate students of Croatian language
and literature (23 respondents or 29.49 percent) (Table II), undergraduate LIS students
(33 respondents or 18.75 percent) (Table I) and full-time faculty from the Department of
Croatian Language and Literature (11 respondents or 27.50 percent) (Table III).
Furthermore, broken down by academic title, assistants were most represented faculty
members in our sample (18 assistants or 45 percent) (Table IV).
3.3 Results
The data collected from the questionnaires are analyzed below. Depending on the
question type, arithmetic mean was used for the analysis of five-point Likert scale
measuring satisfaction (scales from 1¼very dissatisfied to 5¼very satisfied) and
importance (scales from 1¼not important at all to 5¼very important), while the open-ended
questions were analyzed by content.
Satisfaction with library services in general. Table V shows that the overall
satisfaction with library services is somewhat better among the faculty (mean 4.20)
Customer
satisfaction
77
Table I.
Structure of
undergraduate
student sample

5. Students/fields of study – graduate Population, n(%) Respondents, n(%)
Croatian language and literature 94(17.64) 23(29.49)
Psychology 74(13.88) 4(5.75)
LIS 71(13.32) 4(5.13)
German language and literature 42(7.88) 11(14.10)
English language and literature and German language and
literature 47(8.82) 8(10.26)
Croatian language and literature and education 33(6.19) 2(2.56)
Education and history 31(5.82) 0(0.00)
English language and literature and education 25(4.69) 1(1.28)
History and philosophy 25(4.69) 4(5.13)
Croatian language and literature and history 23(4.32) 6(7.69)
English language and literature and history 19(3.56) 4(5.13)
Croatian language and literature and philosophy 15(2.81) 6(7.69)
Philosophy and education 14(2.63) 0(0.00)
Croatian language and literature and English language and
literature 11(2.06) 4(5.13)
English language and literature and philosophy 4(0.75) 0(0.00)
Written heritage in digital environment 3(0.56) 0(0.00)
German language and literature and history 1(0.19) 1(1.28)
German language and literature and education 1(0.19) 0(0.00)
Total 533(100.00) 78(100.00)
than among the students (mean 4.04). Furthermore, 32.50 percent of the faculty (13
respondents) and 32.96 percent of the students (88 respondents) are completely
satisfied while only 2.50 percent of the faculty (one respondent) and 0.37 percent of the
students (one respondent) are completely dissatisfied (Figure 1).
Undergraduate and graduate students demonstrate almost the same level of
satisfaction (undergraduate 4.06 and graduate 4.03) (Table VI).
According to the fields of study, students of Education and students of English
language and literature can be considered the most satisfied with the library services
(mean 4.39 and 4.30, respectively). The least satisfied were students of Psychology and
Philosophy (Psychology, 3.88 and Philosophy, 3.83) (Table VII).
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Table II.
Structure of graduate
student sample
Faculty/departments Population n(%) Respondents n(%)
Croatian language and literature 35(26.12) 11(27.50)
LIS 17(12.69) 7(17.50)
English language and literature 19(14.18) 6(15.00)
German language and literature 13(9.70) 6(15.00)
Psychology 13(9.70) 2(5.00)
Philosophy 7(5.22) 1(2.50)
Hungarian language and literature 3(2.24) 1(2.50)
History 11(8.21) 1(2.50)
Education 10(7.46) 0(0.00)
Common subjects department 6(4.48) 4(10.00)
Non-defined 0(0.00) 1(2.50)
Total 134(100.00) 40(100.00)
Table III.
Structure of faculty
sample by departments

6. Faculty/title Population, n(%) Respondents, n(%)
Full professors 14(10.45) 3(7.50)
Associate professors 17(12.69) 1(2.50)
Assistant professors 22(16.42) 8(20.00)
Senior assistants 15(11.19) 1(2.50)
Assistants 39(29.10) 18(45.00)
Senior lecturers 5(3.73) 4(10.00)
Senior language instructors 6(4.48) 1(2.50)
Lecturers 1(0.75) 0(0.00)
Language instructors 1(0.75) 0(0.00)
Scientific-educational researchers 14(10.45) 1(2.50)
Non-defined 0(0.00) 3(7.50)
Total 134(100.01) 40(100.00)
32.96
45.32
15.36
32.50
57.50
7.50
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
The major causes for student dissatisfaction are lack of available materials in the
library, faulty computer equipment and disruption of the internet service, while
the faculty want access to more online databases and more prompt interlibrary loan
service.
Customer
satisfaction
79
Table IV.
Structure of faculty
sample by academic title
Users Respondents (n) Mean
Students 267 4.04
Faculty 40 4.20
Table V.
User satisfaction with
library services in general,
students vs faculty
Users Respondents (n) Mean
Undergraduate students 167 4.06
Graduate students 79 4.03
Table VI.
User satisfaction with
library services in general,
undergraduate vs
graduate students
5.99
2.50
0%
2
Faculty
1
Students
Completely satisfied
Satisfied
Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
Somewhat dissatisfied
Completely dissatisfied
Figure 1.
User satisfaction with
library services in general,
students vs faculty

7. When asked to describe the library service aspects which they found most valuable,
for students it is mostly the friendliness of librarians, promptness of service, provision
of internet and reading rooms for quiet and group study: for the faculty, librarians’
friendliness and responsiveness and service promptness were identified as the most
valuable assets of the FPO library.
When asked to define what they would like to change about the library, students
wanted better computer equipment and faster internet access, a ban on the usage of
social community networks such as Facebook and the provision more diverse book
materials. The faculty would like richer library collections and subscriptions to various
electronic information resources.
Satisfaction with specific library collections. Students and faculty value library
collections similarly: students evaluated required materials (obligatory book materials
required for the courses and exams) with the mean score 3.77, and faculty with 3.83.
The further reading materials (additional information sources for the courses) were
scored with mean 3.13 by students and with 2.98 by faculty. The reference collection
(encyclopedias, dictionaries, glossaries, etc.) was valued with 3.34 by students and 3.29
by faculty. Faculty were more dissatisfied with the journal collection (mean value 2.93)
than the students (mean score 3.31) while students were more satisfied with the
research collection (materials needed for writing seminar papers, undergraduate and
graduate papers, doctoral thesis and research papers) (mean score 3.44) than faculty
(mean value 3.03) (Figure 2).
Both undergraduate and graduate students are most satisfied with required
materials collection (undergraduate mean value 3.86, graduate mean value 3.60) and
research collection (undergraduate mean value 3.55, graduate mean value 3.27). Those
two respondent groups agree also with each other when it comes to the segment
of library collection they are least satisfied with. They are both dissatisfied with
further reading collection (undergraduate mean value 3.22, graduate mean value 3.00)
(Table VIII).
Table IX shows satisfaction data for the student sample broken down by their field
of study. Almost all study groups are mostly satisfied with required materials subject
collections. Only LIS students are more satisfied with LIS reference collection (mean
value 4.00), but LIS required materials collection came second best with mean value
of 3.97. It seems that psychology students are most satisfied student group in the
sample when it comes to required materials collection for their subject of study
(mean value 4.12).
Students/fields of study Respondents (n) Mean
Hungarian language and literaturea 1 5.00
Education 23 4.39
English language and literature 54 4.30
German language and literature 47 4.26
History 51 4.25
Croatian language and literature 115 4.03
LIS 37 3.89
Psychology 25 3.88
Philosophy 29 3.83
Note: aExcluded from this analysis due to insufficient number of respondents
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Table VII.
Student satisfaction
with library services
in general according
to fields of study

8. 3.34 3.31 3.44
3.13
3.77
2.93 3.03
3.29
2.98
3.83
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
Required
materials
Further reading
materials
Reference
collection
Journals and
newspapers
Research
collection
Students Faculty
The worst scored parts of the library holdings are further reading collections for
philosophy program (2.77), reference collection and journals and newspapers
for psychology program (2.81 and 2.87, respectively), further reading collection for
psychology and history program (2.92 and 2.94, respectively).
Percentage to which FPOL satisfies overall information needs of its users. As it
can be seen from Figure 3, FPOL provides almost all the information for only
one member of the faculty (2.50 percent) and 34 students (11.48 percent) suggesting
that the rest of the sample (39 faculty respondents or 87.50 percent and 246
student respondents or 82.52 percent) turn to other information resources. For majority
of students (83 respondents or 30.74 percent), the library meets between 61 and
80 percent of their information needs whereas with faculty it is for majority of our
respondents (15 respondents or 37.50 percent) between 41 and 60 percent of their
information needs.
Table X shows that the library meets for majority of both undergraduate
(55 respondents or 32.35 percent) and graduate students (23 respondents or 29.11
percent) between 61 and 80 percent of their information needs.
Table XI shows data broken down by student field of study. According to them,
the library meets the best the information needs of Croatian (38 respondents or
33.04 percent), LIS (15 respondents or 40.54 percent), German (14 respondents
or 29.17 percent) and Education students (nine respondents or 37.50 percent). For them,
it meets between 61 and 80 percent of their information needs. For Philosophy students
it meets only 41-60 percent of their needs (nine respondents or 30 percent) and the
biggest collection problems concern English, History and Psychology department.
According to students, library meets only between 21 and 40 percent of information
needs of those students.
Importance of FPOL for its users. Both, the faculty (with mean score 4.00 out of 5.00)
and the students (mean score 4.34) perceive FPOL to be important for their individual,
professional and academic development. For one faculty member (2.50 percent) FPOL
is not important at all, and for 11 faculty respondents (27.50 percent) it is very
Customer
satisfaction
81
Figure 2.
Student vs faculty
satisfaction with specific
library collections

9. important, for three student respondents (1.11 percent) FPOL is not important at all,
and for 132 respondents (48.71 percent) it is very important (Figure 4).
Broken down to undergraduate and graduate students, the library seems to be a
slightly more important for undergraduate (mean value 4.38) than graduate students
(mean value 4.26) (Table XII).
If we want to know about fields of study, Table XIII gives data which show
that Croatian (mean value 4.51), Education (mean value 4.42) and English students
(mean value 4.35) find library most important. Psychology (mean value 4.08) and LIS
students (mean value 4.14) consider library least important.
Satisfaction vs expectations. In the next block, our respondents were asked to
mark (on a five-point Likert scale) their expected and perceived level of service for
various library service elements. We calculated means and gaps for both categories
and for both respondent groups. As it can be seen from Table XIV, service aspects with
the biggest gap for both respondent groups are:
(1) book materials (faculty, 1.53; students, 1.35); and
(2) computer equipment (faculty, 1.20; students, 1.89).
Users
Required
materials
Further reading
materials
Reference
collection
Journals and
newspapers
Research
collection
Undergraduate
students
Mean
(n¼161) 3.86 3.22 3.47 3.39 3.55
Graduate
students
Mean
(n¼73) 3.60 3.00 3.15 3.22 3.27
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Table VIII.
Student satisfaction with
specific library collections,
undergraduate vs
graduate students
Students/fields of study
Required
materials
Further reading
materials
Reference
collection
Journals and
newspapers
Research
collection
Croatian language
and literature
Mean
(n¼113) 3.62 3.03 3.17 3.27 3.36
English language
and literature
Mean
(n¼48) 3.85 3.49 3.52 3.48 3.75
Philosophy Mean
(n¼28) 3.57 2.77 3.00 3.32 3.17
LIS Mean
(n¼36) 3.97 3.28 4.00 3.50 3.57
Hungarian language
and literaturea
Mean
(n¼1) 5.00 3.00 5.00 3.00 5.00
German language
and literature
Mean
(n¼40) 3.76 3.49 3.53 3.47 3.62
Education Mean
(n¼24) 3.92 3.29 3.50 3.46 3.79
History Mean
(n¼47) 3.73 2.94 3.25 3.40 3.37
Psychology Mean
(n¼21) 4.12 2.92 2.81 2.87 3.12
Note: aExcluded from the analysis due to insufficient number of respondents
Table IX.
Student satisfaction
with specific library
collections according
to fields of study

10. 40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0-20% 21-40% 41-60% 61-80% 81-100%
Users 0-20% 21-40% 41-60% 61-80% 81-100%
Undergraduate students % 10.59 22.35 20.59 32.35 14.12
n 18 38 35 55 24
Graduate students % 17.72 18.99 27.85 29.11 6.33
n 14 15 22 23 5
Customer
satisfaction
83
Table X.
Percentage to which FPOL
satisfies overall
information needs of its
users, undergraduate vs
graduate students
Students/fields of study 0-20% 21-40% 41-60% 61-80% 81-100%
Croatian language and literature % 10.43 19.13 25.22 33.04 12.17
n 12 22 29 38 14
English language and literature % 11.11 29.63 16.67 24.07 18.52
n 6 16 9 13 10
Philosophy % 16.67 23.33 30.00 13.33 16.67
n 5 7 9 4 5
LIS % 13.51 16.22 24.32 40.54 5.41
n 5 6 9 15 2
Hungarian language and literatureaa % 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00
n 0 0 0 1 0
German language and literature % 14.58 18.75 18.75 29.17 18.75
n 7 9 9 14 9
Education % 16.67 8.33 29.17 37.50 8.33
n 4 2 7 9 2
History % 11.32 28.30 26.42 26.42 7.55
n 6 15 14 14 4
Psychology % 20.00 40.00 16.00 20.00 4.00
n 5 10 4 5 1
Note: aExcluded from the analysis due to insufficient number of respondents
Table XI.
Percentage to which
FPOL satisfies
overall information
needs of students
according to fields
of study
12.59
21.85
23.33
30.74
11.48
22.50
27.50
37.50
10.00
2.50
0
Students Faculty
Figure 3.
Percentage to which
FPOL satisfies overall
information needs
of its users

11. 60
50
40
30
20
10
Not important Important
Users Respondents (n) Mean
Undergraduate students 170 4.38
Graduate students 80 4.26
Quadrant analysis of the data (Figure 5) collocated all the data in the following two
quadrants:
(1) very important for our respondents that the library provides the service; and
(2) the library provides the service, but it is not perceived as that important by our
respondents.
It shows that faculty and students both regard book materials, usefulness of the
information received in the library, librarian’s availability, librarians’ friendliness and
responsiveness, librarians’ competences and know-how and service delivery time as
very important services which the library provide. While faculty also regards the
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Table XII.
Importance of FPOL for
users, undergraduate vs
graduate students
Students/fields of study Respondents (n) Mean
Croatian language and literature 116 4.51
English language and literature 54 4.35
Philosophy 30 4.27
LIS 37 4.14
Hungarian language and literaturea 1 4.00
German language and literature 48 4.31
Education 24 4.42
History 53 4.32
Psychology 25 4.08
Note: aExcluded from the analysis due to insufficient number of respondents
Table XIII.
Importance of FPOL
for student users
according to fields
of study
9.96
0.74
48.71
39.48
1.11
50.00
20.00
0.00
2.50
27.50
0
Students Faculty
Not
important
at all
Neither
important nor
not important
Very
important
Figure 4.
Perception of the
importance of FPOL for
individual, professional
and academic
development of the
respondents

12. Faculty Students
Mean Mean
Library service/aspect Expected Perceived Gap Expected Perceived Gap
Online catalogue 4.56 4.50 0.06 3.74 3.93 0.19
Reference service 4.41 4.47 0.06 4.19 4.07 0.12
Book materials 4.64 3.11 1.53 4.67 3.32 1.35
Library holding layout 4.15 4.08 0.07 3.93 4.01 0.08
Interlibrary loan 4.41 4.32 0.09 3.67 3.47 0.20
Usefulness of the information received in
the library 4.67 4.17 0.50 4.67 4.08 0.59
Librarians’ availability 4.73 4.79 0.06 4.71 4.57 0.14
Librarians’ friendliness and responsiveness 4.84 4.90 0.06 4.71 4.64 0.07
Librarians’ competences and know-how 4.86 4.67 0.19 4.78 4.58 0.20
Service delivery time 4.68 4.71 0.03 4.61 4.30 0.31
Library instruction 4.06 4.23 0.17 3.58 3.61 0.03
Working hours 4.35 4.70 0.35 4.52 4.39 0.13
Reading room 4.06 3.67 0.39 4.62 3.82 0.80
Computer equipment 4.26 3.06 1.20 4.58 2.69 1.89
OPAC to be very important, for students on the other hand, this quadrant also includes
working hours, reading room and computer equipment.
The second quadrant reveals services provided by the library, but not perceived as
that important by respondents. In our case, faculty and students agree that reference
service, library holding layout, interlibrary loan and library instruction fall into
this quadrant. While OPAC was very important for the faculty, students perceive it as
not that important. On the other hand, working hours, reading room and computer
equipment are not so important for the faculty as for the students who put these
services, as already mentioned, in the first quadrant.
Although there is a substantial gap between the perceived and expected quality of
book materials and computer equipment (highlighted by italics in Figure 5), the both
fall into the first quadrant with services very important for the library users and
provided by the library. The rating of some services as “not that important” (OPAC,
information service, library holding layout, library instruction, interlibrary loan) may
be caused by the lack of familiarity with these services and unawareness of its full
potential. Hopefully, the perception of these services will change till the next survey.
3.4 Discussion
This satisfaction survey was aimed at customers of the FPO’s library. They were
broken down to two respondent groups – faculty and students. This time we managed
to reach 29.85 percent of the faculty, 21.36 percent of undergraduate and 14.63 percent
of graduate students. As already argued, there are some shortcomings in our
distribution methodology (some study groups and faculty departments were
underrepresented or not reached at all) and the size of the sample, which we intend
to correct in our next survey.
The comparative analysis of respondents’ structure revealed that the results of this
questionnaire are mostly based on the opinions of LIS, Croatian language and literature
and Psychology undergraduate students, Croatian language and literature, German
language and literature, and English language and literature graduate students. As for
the faculty, the survey is based mostly on the opinions from the Department of Croatian
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85
Table XIV.
Perceived and expected
level of library services
for faculty and students

13. 1. Very important for library customers that the
library provides the service:
Faculty Students
OPAC Book materials
Book materials Usefulness of the information received in the
library
Usefulness of the information received in the
library Librarians’ availability
Librarians’ availability Librarians’ friendliness and responsiveness
Librarians’ friendliness and responsiveness Librarians’ competences and know-how
Librarians’ competences and know-how Service delivery time
Service delivery time Working hours
Book materials Reading room
Usefulness of the information received in the
library Computer equipment
Librarians’ availability
2. Library provides the service,
but it is not perceived as that important by customers:
Faculty Students
Reference service OPAC
Library holding layout Reference service
Interlibrary loan Library holding layout
Library instruction Interlibrary loan
Working hours Library instruction
Reading room
Computer equipment
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Figure 5.
Quadrant analysis of
library services

14. Language and Literature, LIS Department, Departments of English Language and
Literature, and German Language and Literature. Faculty is slightly more satisfied
with the library services in general than students with the mean score 4.45 and 32.50
percent of them being completely satisfied. Students are slightly less satisfied with the
mean 4.04. However, 32.96 percent of the students are completely satisfied.
The research says ( Johnston, 1996) that only those customers that describe their
satisfaction level as completely satisfied tend to be loyal. At all other levels of loyalty
customers are likely to do their business elsewhere. Therefore it was crucial for our
library to identify the percentage (and the structure) of those loyal customers i.e.
customers who described themselves as completely satisfied. For our sample that
means that 32.50 percent of faculty (13 respondents) and 32.96 percent of students (88
respondents) can be regarded as completely satisfied and loyal to library. Since the
library needs that kind of users, measures must be taken to eliminate the reasons of
dissatisfaction in dissatisfied or less satisfied users.
According to the fields of study, students of Education and students of English
language and literature are most satisfied with the library services whereas the least
satisfied were students of Psychology and Philosophy. These findings can be combined
with the satisfaction with various parts of library collections.
Students perceive that library as slightly more important for their individual,
professional and academic development as faculty do. For just three students and only
a single member of the faculty, FPOL had no importance at all; for 48.71 percent of the
students and 27.50 percent of the faculty it is seen as very important.
It is not surprising that the Psychology and Philosophy students show the least level
of satisfaction with library services as we are aware that the one of the highest influences
on satisfaction is the completeness of library collections. Furthermore, if we take into
account that studies of Psychology and Philosophy are relatively new additions to the
Faculty of Philosophy and their library collections are in the process of being built, it is
obvious why those two particular student groups turn out to be least satisfied.
Students and faculty do not differ much in evaluation of individual library
collections. The faculty are mostly dissatisfied with journals and newspapers and
further reading materials, and students with further reading materials and journals
and newspapers. They are both quite satisfied with required materials. In general, the
faculty is always somewhat less satisfied with all library collections since they need
deeper scientific insights for their research.
Comparative analysis in Table IX is very important for future library collection
development policy since the user satisfaction/dissatisfaction is an indication of the
parts of library collections most in need of improvement. The parts of the individual
library holdings receiving the worst scores were – with a mean value under 3.00 –
further reading materials for philosophy, psychology and history, reference collection
and journal collection for psychology.
The library tries to accommodate all subject areas and create collections for all
fields of study but building good collections takes time. Since the Bologna process
requires that a higher education institution must provide all the necessary required
materials and further reading materials in sufficient quantities for its students, the
library’s collection building policy is focussed on those two collections, putting
additional resources such as those titles required for research and scientific work
mostly on hold until the two main collections are completed. Therefore it is not
surprising to find out that Psychology students for example are both extremely
satisfied with their required material collection but are also extremely dissatisfied
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87

15. with reference or journal collection. Since further reading lists for some study fields
(e.g. philosophy, history) include numerous titles which are either out of print or
published abroad in foreign languages, the library finds it very difficult to acquire all
the titles for those lists.
Both students and faculty are least satisfied with computer equipment and book
materials, but with an annual acquisition budget for only about 400 volumes of book
materials, and very old computer equipment this is not surprising and the library is well
aware of the problems. However, lacking the financial means and executive power (being a
dependent part of a higher education institution) it is unable to rectify them at the moment.
In addition, students are also dissatisfied with interlibrary loan and library
instruction and faculty with reading room and library holding layout. Students are
most satisfied with librarians’ friendliness and responsiveness and their competences
and know-how, faculty are also most satisfied with librarians’ friendliness and
responsiveness and their availability when needed. Both students and faculty regard
the most important aspects of library services to be librarians’ competences and know-how
and their friendliness and responsiveness and availability when needed.
Quadrant analysis revealed that both students and faculty agree on some services
which they regard to be very important and which library provides: book materials,
usefulness of the information received in the library, librarians’ availability when
needed, librarians’ friendliness and responsiveness, librarians’ competences and know-how
and service delivery time. The OPAC is also very important for the faculty;
working hours, reading room and computer equipment for students.
Both, faculty and students regard information service, library holding layout,
interlibrary loan and library instruction not to be that important for them, the OPAC is
not that important for students, and working hours, reading room and computer
equipment are not that important for the faculty.
The survey brought some interesting, and seemingly contradicting responses of
our respondents, especially when it comes to computer equipment, internet provi-sion
and book collections. Namely, these elements are both referred to as causes of
dissatisfaction of certain respondent groups, but at the same time, the quadrant
analysis placed those elements of service in the group of “Important for customers
that the library provides the service.” Obviously, the library provides sufficient basic
level of service when it comes to those service elements: it takes care about required
materials collection, and it provides computer equipment and internet access.
Obviously, those service elements need looking into because other library collections
must be developed and enriched as well, more modern computer equipment installed
and faster (and wireless) internet provided.
Our survey also shows that users do not appreciate the value of some important
library services such as library instruction, interlibrary loan and the OPAC. These are also
questions with the lowest response rate for both students and faculty. It will be interesting
to see if the users’ attitude towards these services changes in the next survey after
marketing activities are intensified, emphasizing the possibilities and advantages of these
services to potential users. Further research will demonstrate if maybe the reason for such
an evaluation was a lack of awareness of all of the benefits these services can provide.
4. Conclusion
This paper presents some of the findings of the first in the series of satisfaction surveys
that the Library of Faculty of Philosophy plans to conduct as a part of its efforts to
improve its quality.
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16. Results of this survey were indicative on several levels. They have helped the
library to identify service areas which cause most dissatisfaction for costumers and
which need more attention on the part of the library, but they also gave a solid
base which can be presented to the administration when applying for higher budget
(such as for book materials and electronic resources, computer equipment and a new
reading room).
The strengths of the library are definitely the people it employs: library users
are most satisfied with service elements which fall in the domain of assurance,
empathy and responsiveness and these aspects must be maintained and developed
further.
The aspects of the services which received the most unfavorable assessments can
be subdivided into two groups regarding the actual cause of faults:
(1) service aspects the improvement of which depends on the support and
funds from the administration (computer equipment, book materials, access to
databases, additional reading room for group study); and
(2) service aspects which can be improved by the library itself (the OPAC, inter-library
loans, library instruction).
Although the budget allocated to the acquisition of book materials has stayed much
the same, the FPOL has tried to eliminate the sources of dissatisfaction with the
information sources by intensifying the promotion of interlibrary loans (posters on
interlibrary loans in the reading rooms, basic information on this service during the
reception for the first year undergraduate students and during library instruction
courses at the beginning of the first year of the study), subscribing to electronic
information resources (Cambridge Journals online, Project Muse, Emerald), library
instruction on information and library literacy and various e-resources.
The results of the survey have implied some basic priorities in the future library
development orientation such as focussing on library instruction and information
literacy. They also present valuable reference points for next surveys to be conducted
and for the evaluation if the sources of dissatisfaction with library services have been
eliminated, or at least alleviated and if the measures undertaken by the library show
results or if they have to be corrected.
Notes
1. In 2008 academic libraries dedicated their annual conference to the topic of library
quality (tenth days of special and academic libraries, Opatija, April 24-26, 2008) and
in 2011 the section for Statistics and Performance Indicators of the Croatian
Library Association organized a round table entitled “From Statistics to Performance
Indicators.”
2. The project was started in 2007 and finishes with 2011. It is carried out by the Department
of Information Sciences of the Faculty of Philosophy in Osijek (FPO).
3. Measuring activities in Croatian libraries are further complicated by the fact that Croatia
does not have a good statistical survey that would collect the basic statistical data about
libraries. The survey that has been for years used by the Croatian Bureau of Statistics is
inadequate and the data are processed and published only in their collective form, which
means that no benchmarking between two libraries is possible on the basis of those data.
Croatian Agency for Librarianship at the National and University Library in Zagreb
initiated in 2009 new statistical questionnaire, but only for Croatian public libraries. One
thing that is especially important with this initiative is that, besides new and more
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17. appropriate measures, it also came together with comprehensive Instructions booklet which
left no possibility for error in filling the questionnaire out.
4. We refer to this survey as the “first” because it marks the beginning of the systematic
collection of customer satisfaction. However, there was a customer satisfaction survey
conducted in 1998 for the purposes of a master thesis (Petr, 2000, 2001). Unfortunately, back
then the library did not see the need for continuation of that activity.
5. The FPO, as a part of Josip Juraj Strossmayer University in Osijek, one out of
seven universities in Croatia, provides academic education for the population of the eastern
region of Croatia, as well as neighboring countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia,
Hungary).
6. Undergraduate teaching programs of FPO are Croatian language and literature; Education;
English language and literature; German language and literature; history; Hungarian
language and literature; Library and Information Science (LIS); Philosophy and Psychology.
Graduate teaching programs are: Croatian language and literature; Education; English
language and literature; German language and literature; History; Hungarian language and
literature; LIS; Philosophy and Psychology; Written heritage in digital environment, and the
two postgraduate teaching programs: postgraduate university study of linguistics and
postgraduate university study of literature and cultural identity.
7. Based on autumn 2009 enrollment list.
8. And while this is true for the majority of our faculty, it is not entirely true for all. There are
some faculty members (elder) who reluctantly use the information technology and prefer
other ways of communication (e.g. majority of our Education department faculty). These
faculty members were, therefore, also excluded from our research because they did not check
their e-mails.
9. According to them, for the population of 800 the sample size should be 259 (we had 176
for population of 824 undergraduate students), for the population of 500 the sample
size should be 217 (we had 78 for the population of 533 graduate students) and for the
population of 100 the sample size should be 79 (we had 40 for the sample size of 134 faculty
members). We failed to achieve the required sample size for each of our respondent groups.
10. Some study groups were not represented in the overall sample such as undergraduate
students of Hungarian language and literature and English language and literature, English
language and literature and education and Hungarian language and literature and history,
and graduate students of education and history, education and philosophy, English language
and literature and philosophy, German language and literature and education.
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About the authors
Kornelija Petr Balog is a Lecturer at the Department of Information Sciences, Faculty of
Philosophy in Osijek, Croatia and teaches courses on organization of information, information
retrieval and performance measurement. Kornelija Petr Balog is the corresponding author and
can be contacted at: kpetr@ffos.hr
Bernardica Plasˇc´ak is Chief Librarian at the Faculty of Philosophy in Osijek Library.
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