Maastricht University Library Wall

Library User Satisfaction: the results of the Flycatcher questionnaire among students and actions by the University Library to improve things

Each year, around June, Flycatcher Internet Research sends out a questionnaire by email to UM students and UM employees in order to measure their use, their perception of importance and their satisfaction of diverse UM services, amongst them the University Library.

For 2011 the results for the students are as follows:

Students are heavy users of library services, just a few students claim not to use the library.  The Language Centre, offering language courses, translation and edit services as well as PBL introductory courses, is used in the past year by one out of every seven students.

In general, more than 80 percent of the student population is satisfied with EleUM and the book- and journal collection of the University Library. More than 70% highly value the facility to order books and journal articles from other libraries and appreciate the electronic or personal helpdesk service.

The percentage of students, dissatisfied with the Language Centre, has gone down from 24% in 2010 to 18% in 2011.

Whatever the complaints are, the University Library examines each of them carefully, looking for possible and affordable ways to improve matters. To clarify problems, students are invited by the University Library to give extra information.

The overall students’ satisfaction of both the Inner City and the Ranwyck location has decreased compared to last year. Especially in the case of the Inner City Library, the location is considered to be too crowded, too small and too noisy. In addition, a lack of study places and print/copy facilities is mentioned. Because the intensified use of the library is directly related to the increased number of students studying at Maastricht University, two types of measures have been taken.

• First, in order to regulate the use, the house regulations have changed. Upon entering the library locations, and in every library area,  red-orange-green traffic light markings were introduced to inform you how to behave and what type of activity is possible in each of the rooms.
• Furthermore, the project Learning Space was initiated in order to find the study environment, most suited to meet the needs of students in the digital age. Doing this, the University Library expects to give an adequate response to the encountered problems.

Some library services are assessed better in 2011 compared to 2010: the collection of books, the language training and the electronic learning environment, EleUM.

All in all, the Flycatcher user survey among students helps the library to focus its efforts to improve the user services. If you are willing to help us in further improvements, please join then the library user group by sending a message to ‘Ask your librarian’. Information about the subjects of the user group and actions can be found on the Library Wall.