User Consultation in North Glasgow Libraries
Introduction
As it had been some time since hospital staff had been consulted on the library service, it was decided to survey staff to help inform future development. The aims and objectives of the survey were to evaluate the use of and satisfaction with the services and resources provided by the library service for staff working in the North Glasgow Hospitals (namely Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Western Infirmary, Gartnavel General Hospital, Stobhill Hospital and Beatson Oncology Centre). In particular this survey looked at:
- Whether staff are aware of and use the library service
- How use of the library service influences their work and/or patient care
- Suitability of library opening hours and environment
- Use of and satisfaction with specific services and resources provided by the library
- Use of the library website
- Perceptions of the eLearning service offered by the library
- Communication between the library service and the user population
Methodology
A combination of multiple choice, closed and open questions were used to make the results as easy as possible to analyse and to give the respondents the freedom to comment. A pilot was carried out with a small representative group of staff to check for errors, ambiguities and problems of access. The questionnaire was distributed via email, the library website (a link to the survey was displayed on the library website’s home page), via the intranet, by post and given out from the libraries to avoid excluding those not on the internal email system or those without access to the Internet. Distribution of the survey took place over a two month period.
It was decided to use Survey Monkey (http://www.surveymonkey.com) to host the questionnaire due to the ease of providing access to the survey, the reduction in production costs for the questionnaire and the simplicity of analysing the survey results using the software. The Survey Monkey software automatically compiles results and was used as the primary method of analysis for the survey.
Results and analysis
Demographics
The total response rate was 340. This seems a low response rate when considering that there are approximately 12000 staff working within North Glasgow Hospitals (2.8% return rate). However, this represents a respectable response in terms of total number of respondents when compared to previous surveys. There was a good spread across different staff groups and there was a high response from some sections, e.g. nursing and medical staff. However, it would have been preferable to have received more responses from some of the more under-represented staff groups, e.g. Estates.
Library use and non-use
The majority (95.4%) of respondents had heard about the library service, which would suggest that marketing has been successful in raising awareness of the library service amongst staff.
The majority (85.5%) of those asked said that they had used the library service. When analysing this according to staff groups, it is interesting to note that the main staff groups using the library are nurses (33%) and doctors (23%). The figures show that the library service is more heavily used by clinical staff, but not solely by medical staff. This suggests that efforts to widen out access beyond the traditional medical staff population group have been successful. However, there is still some work to do with regards to non-clinical staff (e.g. Administrators (0.9%), Estates (0%) and Clerical (5%)) who, whilst making up a significant proportion of total staff, still only account for a very small number of library users. It is important that the library is seen as a resource for all staff groups and perhaps the library needs to consider what additional resources and services could be provided to attract other staff groups to the service.
There does not seem to be the same level of use of the library to support management and planning/strategic development. It is unclear from the results if this is due to a perceived lack of library resources by managers to support this kind of activity. Only a small percentage (4.2%) of respondents selected the Management staff category.
The main reason given for people not using the library service was time. There are a number of ways the library service could address this, e.g. increasing opening hours and adding more online resources to try and create more flexible access to the libraries. The library service could also emphasise the time-saving quality of particular ‘push’ services (e.g. literature searching, current awareness, contents page alerts, evidence summaries, news feeds) when advertising the library.
The majority of respondents use the library weekly (33%) and monthly (31%). Only 5.3% use the library daily. Weekly or monthly use suggests people routinely use the library as part of their working practice. The library supports the work of staff in educational coursework (35% often and 34% sometimes) and teaching/training/mentoring (43% sometimes and 29% often). This fits in with the traditional role of libraries. The library also supports staff in patient care (43% sometimes and 29% often), CPD (41% sometimes and 36% often) and personal development (44% sometimes and 28% often).
Access
The majority of respondents (59.3%) were happy with the current opening hours. A small percentage of respondents would like to have alternative access outwith the traditional 9-5 opening hours, e.g. 24hrs 7 days a week, unstaffed outwith 9-5 (14.6%), access until 10pm (7%) and until 7.30pm (6.5%). However, it would be difficult to justify the expense of extended opening hours on the basis of such limited demand. Overall the library environment was considered to be satisfactory, with just a few comments about noise on some sites.
The majority (61%) of respondents considered all the library charges to be just right. However, 23% of people thought that photocopying (£1 for 14 pages) should be free and 34% of respondents thought that British Library charges (£3 per item) were too expensive. It was surprising that, overwhelmingly, people were happy with the charges, as they have always been assumed to be unpopular amongst library users by library staff.
Services
The majority of respondents rated most services as ‘good’. Literature searches and general customer services were both rated as ‘excellent’ by the majority of respondents (37% and 38%, respectively). Most respondents were not aware of the contents page service and Get Ahead (literacy, numeracy and core skills training) (26% and 47%), although 26% did also state that the contents page service was good. This may highlight an additional marketing need in this area, or it may be a result of the survey population not being fully representative of all staff groups, in particular those staff groups that would perhaps use Get Ahead.
Resources
Most resources were regarded as being ‘good’, e.g. books (39%), journals (40%), library website (35%). Thirty-two per cent of respondents did not know about the audiovisual materials and CD-ROMs, which perhaps highlights a marketing issue. The eLibrary was rated ‘excellent’ by 34% of respondents and ‘good’ by 33%. This is an encouraging response and would suggest that staff are embracing this relatively new method of providing remote access to library and information resources. It is difficult to analyse the results for this question as the responses are quite evenly spread. Without any evidence to show that resources are considered either ‘excellent’ or in ‘need of improvement’ it is hard to make any recommendations for library resources.
Journals
65.3% of respondents preferred to access journals online. 12.5% accessed the journals in print format and 22.2% did not express a preference (see Fig 1 below).
Fig 1 Users’ preference for journal access
It is important to consider the possible bias towards online resources due to the fact that the survey was emailed out and available online. For the group that preferred to access paper journals, it would be interesting to discover if this was more of a training issue, rather than a preference for paper. The growing popularity of the eLibrary and their efforts to market it might have also increased the number of respondents preferring electronic access.
Books
Fifty per cent of respondents liked to access print books held in the library and 22.7% expressed a preference for eBooks (see Fig 2).
Fig 2 Users preference for access to books
This clearly shows a need to continue to develop the libraries’ print book collections, alongside promotion and training for electronic books. It seems that users do still appreciate print books, maybe because of their portability and ease of use.
Library Website
72.5% of respondents used the library website and 27.5% did not. This is encouraging as the library website is the central point of access to library services for all staff. The majority (80.8%) of respondents access the library website from their workplace, 36.9% access the website from home and 21.3% access it from a hospital library (see Fig 3 below).
Fig 3 Point of access of library website
eLearning
35.6% of respondents reported that they had previously used eLearning courses, with the remainder (64.4%) stating that they had not. The majority of respondents (60.8%) accessed their eLearning courses from work. People also accessed courses from home (16.4%) and in the library (13.9%). The high percentage (60.8%) of learners accessing the courseware from work suggests that staff have support from their line managers to undertake eLearning courses to support their personal and professional development.
Most people thought that eLearning courses were useful for their personal development (38.8% useful and 31% very useful); a significant number (29%) were not sure. This would suggest that a large number of people are not aware of the opportunities available for personal development through eLearning and view eLearning only as something to support their current work practice. Overall the majority of respondents rated the eLearning service as good in each category: variety of courses (40%), accessibility of courses (40%), general standard of service (41%), user support (36%) and overall provision of eLearning (39%).
Communication
87.1% of respondents felt that the library did communicate well with staff and 12.9% felt that communication was not good. The majority of respondents (62.4%) received information by email. Other popular methods were talking to library staff (39.4%) and the library website (35.3%). Other methods mentioned were ‘visiting the library’ and ‘hospital intranet’.
The majority (76.5%) wished to receive future communications via email, with 31.2% preferring to get information from the website.
It is important that library marketing and promotion reaches staff that do not have ready access to a computer or email. This suggests that it is still important to promote the library via print or other formats, despite the cost, to ensure that all groups are reached.
Recommendations and conclusion
The aim of this survey was to evaluate the use of and satisfaction with the services and resources provided by the library service for staff working in the North Glasgow Hospitals.
Awareness of the library service seems to be good amongst staff, but there are certain staff groups who would benefit from more targeted promotion. The Library supports staff in their education, patient care and continuing professional development, in line with the Library Service’s aims and objectives. The comments received suggest that some of the North Libraries should consider improving aspects of the library environment and extending opening hours. Library resources and services were generally considered good, but several comments suggested that resources need to be updated and additional resources purchased to support other staff groups. Electronic journals seem to be a popular way for staff to gain access to articles and eBooks are rising in popularity. Overall, the eLibrary does seem to be well-used and appreciated by staff.
The library website seems to be well-regarded and some useful suggestions have been made to improve different elements of the site. The library needs to manage changes to the library website and eLibrary better to ensure users do not become frustrated. The eLearning courses provided by the library seem to be considered useful by those who know about them, but it is important for the library to continue to promote these to all staff groups. This is something that we hope to see increasing with the introduction of the Knowledge and Skills Framework, which formalises the organisation’s commitment to the continuous development of its staff. Communication between the library service and the user population is considered to be mostly good by respondents. Email is the preferred method of receiving library messages, but library staff must also ensure that groups without easy access to email are not excluded from library promotion.
The library functions within a constantly changing environment and it is essential that library users are consulted on a regular basis to ensure the library remains relevant to their needs. Library surveys are a good way of assessing users’ perceptions of their library service, but should be repeated on an annual basis. This was the first time that a survey on this scale and using SurveyMonkey had been attempted and several lessons have been learnt. The design and wording of a couple of the questions could be improved next year. In an attempt to improve the response rate, print copies were also distributed and some of the questions did not translate well into this format, which made analysis difficult. In conclusion, this survey gives the Library Service a valuable benchmark against which to measure future library performance.
For full report and questionnaire, please contact Shona McQuistan.
Shona McQuistan
Library Manager Western Infirmary
Dumbarton Road
Glasgow
0141 211 2472
shona.mcquistan@northglasgow.scot.nhs.uk
Frances Schofield
Librarian for Nursing and Midwifery
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (Acute Services)
10 Alexandra Parade
Glasgow
G31 2ER
0141 211 1239
fran.schofield@northglasgow.scot.nhs.uk