A model for mapping users perceptions about the services supplied by a specialized library

ABSTRACT Nowadays a question arises: how to evaluate the users’ satisfaction regarding the services provided by a library? This paper aims to propose and apply a model for evaluating the satisfaction of the users of a library, regarding the library services. The proposal should be divided into three steps: a systematized literature review that has supported the construction of a questionnaire; a data collection though applying the questionnaire to a sample; and, the analysis of the data collected. In the first step, it was performed an extensive and systematized literature review on the bases Scientific Electronic Library Online - SciELO, Scopus and ISI Web of Science was developed to support the construction this model. The results from the literature review were the input for defining the set of evaluation criteria and to prepare a questionnaire for evaluating the users’ satisfaction. In the second step the questionnaire was applied to a sample by users of a library specialized in the field of nuclear technology, in Rio de Janeiro Brazil. In the third step, the data collected were complied and analysed though statistical frequency analysis. The sample was composed of 117 respondents of whom 94 returned forms. The results indicated that the criteria on which the library best performed were the conservation and adequacy of the collection. In the other hand, the results also have shown that the update criteria and international coverage of the collection are the ones that have should receive more attention, once they were perceived as having low performance and high importance for the users’ satisfaction. The main contributions of this research are: the criteria set and the frame for performing the survey and the way data were analysed.