Performance measurement of quality services in academic and research libraries in India

Abstract

A National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) has been established in India for quality and excellence in higher education. NAAC has developed set of objective indicators for the library, as it is the fulcrum of support for the community of academic and research pursuits. This has resulted in a general consensus for rising demands for evaluation and accountability of academic and research librar-ies to develop performance evaluation and measure service quality. For this study, a total of 1200 questionnaires were distributed to the user community of ten university libraries of Karnataka, India, of which 768 (64%) were duly received from students, research scholars and faculty members. The quality dimensions in the light of SERVQUAL viz., Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Access, Communication, Tangibles, Empathy and Security have been applied and the results indicate that the service quality dimensions of reliability, responsiveness, assurance, access, communication and tangibles applied to university libraries in Karnataka are found to be satisfactory to a little extent based on the scale techniques. The study suggests several areas for future research and for collaboration among li-brary managers, educational administrators, scholars and measurement theorists towards improving the performance of library and information system in India to meet the high standards of service quality in libraries to serve the users with utmost care and diligence.