Our thanks go to the 156 members of the Greater Hartford Campus community who participated in our Spring online satisfaction survey. To quickly summarize:
1. Responses came mostly from master’s degree students and undergrads. The School of Social Work provided the largest group of respondents at 43% followed by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences with 24%.
2. Most of our surveyed users (41%) visit once per week when compared to monthly (21%) or other frequencies.
3. Speaking overall, 95% were satisfied, very satisfied or extremely statisfied with the largest group, 50%, being very satisfied.
4. 97% were satisfied, very satisfied or extremely satisfied with the library’s in-house services with the largest group, 46%, being very satisfied.
5. 94% were satisfied, very satisfied or extremely satisfied with the library’s collections with the largest group, 51%, being very satisfied.
6. 93% of respondents were satisfied, very satisfied or extremely satisfied with the library’s staff assistance with the largest group, 40%, being extremely satisfied.
7. 88% were satisfied, very satisfied or extremely satisfied with the library’s hours with the largest group, 46%, being very satisfied.
8. 84% were satisfied, very satisfied or extremely satisfied with the library’s equipment with the largest group, 40%, being very satisfied.
9. 81% were satisfied, very satisfied or extremely satisfied with the library’s interiors with the largest group, 42%, being very satisfied.
In addition to completing the quantitative portions of the survey, roughly half of the respondents accepted an invitation to provide comments. The largest number of comments (30) were praise for the staff. Other significant numbers of comments, in descending order, expressed concerns about the physical condition of the library (20), the library’s hours (10), and its equipment (8). General praise appeared in 9 comments.
The spring online survey was the first of its type to be conducted by the Greater Hartford Campus Trecker Library for its clientele. The University Libraries will be conducting another of its series of Libraries-wide user surveys in 2010. One reason for this survey, which was done prior to the arrival of a significant number of new furnishings, was to establish a baseline to see if facility satisfaction will improve in the 2010 survey. The importance of the surveys cannot be understated because results have been used to support improvements ranging from the furnishings just mentioned to better public computers and photocopiers.
— Bill Uricchio, Library Director