User Perceptions and Satisfaction with Library Reference Services at Panjab University Library

A Survey-Based Study

Abstract

This research explored the perceptions and level of satisfaction of the users with reference services offered by the A.C. Joshi Library at Panjab University, Chandigarh. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted among 221 respondents who were having a library membership and belonging to various departments to evaluate different dimensions of quality of reference services like staff behaviour, communication skills, resource referral, and user satisfaction. For this purpose, an online survey was conducted amongst undergraduate, postgraduate students and research scholars of Panjab University. The results reveal that 26.2% of the respondents were highly satisfied, 38.5% were satisfied, 26.7% were partially satisfied with reference services, whereas 5.4% of the respondents were unsatisfied with reference services. The major findings of this study reveal that respondents having a highly positive perceptions regarding staff behaviour, as 53.4% respondents find reference staffs were providing answers to their queries clearly and quickly and 52.9% respondents express that staff always allow the user to mention their request fully in front of them. Moreover, 45.2% of the respondents rated the quality of reference services consistently high. It is pertinent to mention that 12.2% never find encouragement from the reference staff to revisit again for further any other queries. This study reveals that users have positive perceptions of the library's reference services especially in terms of responsiveness, professionalism, and helpfulness of the staff members. However, areas like following up with the users after addressing their queries and persuading the users to use the reference desk again in the future need to be improved.