Title: Investigating customer satisfaction and service quality in academic libraries: the case of Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia

Authors: Sotirios G. Dimitriadis; Vasiliki Vrana; Stylianos Dimitriou; Vasileios Kalaitzis; George Drogalas

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Terma Magnisias, 62124, Serres, Greece ' Department of Business Administration, Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Terma Magnisias, 62124, Serres, Greece ' Quality Assurance Unit (MODIP), Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Terma Magnisias, 62124, Serres, Greece ' Quality Assurance Unit (MODIP), Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Terma Magnisias, 62124, Serres, Greece ' Quality Assurance Unit (MODIP), Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Terma Magnisias, 62124, Serres, Greece

Abstract: Customer satisfaction and service quality policies have been established in recent years in academic libraries' management. However, setting regulations and imposing procedures requires reliable methods to evaluate actions. The Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Central Macedonia is a university institute committed to provide excellent services to its stakeholders, by developing ongoing dialogue. In order to investigate the library users' habits and assess their satisfaction on provided services, a survey has been conducted. An online questionnaire was developed based on MOPAB's (Total Quality Management Unit of Greek Academic Libraries) guidelines for data collection and was then distributed to library users. Such questionnaires can be a valuable instrument for monitoring user satisfaction on a systemic manner and improving service quality in libraries. Moreover, the questionnaire could be used, after adjustments, as a benchmarking tool for Greek academic libraries. The analysis revealed that even though users do not fully utilise all services, they manifest a high level of satisfaction.

Keywords: academic libraries; user satisfaction; library usage; library services; service quality; library management; Greece; library users; higher education.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDSRM.2013.058900

International Journal of Decision Sciences, Risk and Management, 2013 Vol.5 No.2, pp.161 - 179

Received: 20 Jun 2013
Accepted: 04 Jul 2013

Published online: 30 Jun 2014 *

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