Abstract:

Through combination of SERVQUAL, LibQUAL and Kano model, this article aims to construct a suitable public library service quality evaluation model for China’s modern city, by conducting a questionnaire survey and statistical analysis of Guangzhou library readers’ needs. This article finds that, among the city public library readers’ needs, an array of items belong to the basic demand (M) category——electronic resources, traditional paper resources, capability of providing of readersneed resources, provision of communication space, tidy and comfortable environment, ensurance of confidence of personal information.Some belong to the expectations demand category (O)——audiovisual resources, accessibility of electronic resources at home / office from the library, convenience of using library’s website and information system, mobile library, librarians apt to help readers, librarians ready to respond readers, librarians always polite to readers, librarians having capability and skill to help readers,librarians understanding needs of users, librarians occupying behavior norms, borrowing and returning books in the city library, any of the service point and district libraries. While others belongs to the charismatic demands (A)——timely provision of service for users, selfservice book borrowing and returning machine set at subway or large communities and other places outside the library, timely and effective processing readers’ complaints and suggestions, carrying out training courses and seminars to readers, implementing all kinds of reading promotion activities, promoting children’s activities such as parentchild reading, picturing,contests and modernization of equipment and technology. According to calculation result of satisfaction influence (SI) and dissatisfactory influence (DSI),among the 30 service quality demand items, 25 of them are proven to be high sensitive and are key elements for larger city public library to improve readers’ satisfaction and corresponding service. The highest SI value of the item is “borrow and return books in the city library, any of the service points and district libraries”, while at the same time the item having high satisfaction influence and high dissatisfaction influence is “librarians understand user’s needs” which makes it the most efficient item and worthy of being paid enough attention to improve the satisfaction degree of readers. According to the results of the user needs assessment, this article constructs service quality evaluation model for city public library,taking 6 basic demand indicators, 11 expectation indicators, 5 charismatic demand indicators with hypersensitivity as official index,with 5 indifferent demand indicators as alternative index, and finally puts forward the service quality evaluation model of 22 formal index and 5 optional index.

Keywords: City public library, Service quality, User needs, SERVQUAL, LibQUAL, KANO model