| Research Abstract |
The objective of this study is to identify the dimensions that determine the customers' evaluation of service quality in public/non-profit organizations. We selected one university library each in England and Finland and two in Japan to conduct a questionnaire survey based on the GAP theory of SERVQUAL that has led discussions on the assessment of service quality in marketing theory and practice. Since the actual delivery of information as a service outcome is as important as the service process in libraries, attributes inherent to libraries were incorporated into our survey. Subjecting data obtained to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis showed that library service quality consists of 4 dimensions : "effect of service (personal)," "library as ba (place)," "collections and access," and "effect of service (organizational)," which are different from the S SERVQUAL dimensions : "tangibles," "reliability," "responsiveness," "assurance," and "empathy."
Along with the quantitative method, focus group interviews (FGI) were conducted in Japan, England, and Finland to collect users' opinions about the academic library service. And the interview transcripts were analyzed to grasp the contexts of library use and mapped according to the four dimensions. This will be the basic data for -the examination of indicators and measures (questionnaire items) that should be constructed under them
At the final stage of this study, the survey questionnaire were expanded to include hybrid library aspects, and Conjoint analysis survey was done to articulate the preference among four dimensions as well
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