Page 83 - DLIS406_ACADEMIC_LIBRARY_SYSTEM

Academic Library System

Notes 8.1.7 Information Service System

The information service system is a service delivery system that has direct contact with customers.
In circulation, access and reference services, the customer often serves as the co-producer and
works with the librarians and the library system to produce a final product which enhances
knowledge, skills, or promotes the enjoyment of leisure activities. The service encounter is
always initiated by the customer. Therefore, the major function of an information service
system is dynamic and customer-oriented. Because of direct interaction with public service
librarians, customers require the service to be done right the first time and to be consistent
every time. Consequently, quality by design is the best quality management strategy for information
service system. Quality management tools that can be applied are quality function deployment,
failure mode and effect analysis, and service blueprinting which is specially designed for
effectively managing the service encounter.
Reference service has direct encounters with customers, and the service quality depends highly
on the performance of the reference librarians and their interactions with customers. Therefore,
the design of reference service can adopt the techniques of quality function deployment. Chang
and Hsieh (1996) proposed a modified framework of quality function deployment for reference
service, as shown in figure 4. There are four phases to facilitate communicating service requirements
from the customer to the activities related to quality management of reference service delivery.
The first phase is to identify the customer’s needs and requirements. The second phase is to
define the service requirements and design the co-service system so that the right quality is
built in from the very beginning of service design. The third phase consists of process planning
which is a matter of selecting the co-service process “best” producing what the customer
needs. Phase four involves the planning of the quality management activities. It emphasises
translating reference processes into quality management activities in order to ensure quality
both before and during the reference encounter.
The first task of applying QFD to reference services is to identify customer needs, which are
descriptions in the customer’s own words of the benefits they want the reference services to
provide. The opinions posted on the library web site or BBS (Bulletin Board System), customer
complaints, records of reference interviews, previous user studies, and so on, will all contribute
to the list of customer needs. In reference services, the primary customer needs might be
categorized as “good employees,” “right answers” and “nice environment.” In order to manage
the customer needs, the primary needs need to be structured into a hierarchy. For example,
the primary need for “good employee” might be elaborated as “good attitude” and “good
skills” in serving customers. And the “good attitude” is subdivided into “kind and polite,”
“does not have to wait,” “assists users in looking up information,” and “properly dressed.”
Each customer need is, then, to be met in terms of professional terminology—that is, service
requirements. For example, the words “kind and polite” express the customer’s concept, but
librarians need these words translated into their vocabulary in order to actually build a
service delivering standards and quality management activities. In delivering reference
service, “kind and polite” may be described in terms of the responsiveness, approachability,
attentiveness, and courtesy. The service requirements of reference services translated
from customer needs might be grouped into answer, process, and environment, using an
Affinity Diagram. For example, the quality of answer might be evaluated according to
two perspectives—results and sources. And the quality of source might be evaluated
according to the indicators of credibility, acceptability, accessibility and availability.
After the service requirements have been identified and prioritised, the most important
requirements must be linked to reference process to design the co-service system to
satisfy the customer needs.

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