Quality efforts in an animal health information service

Judit Szabó Szávay
Veterinary Science Library, 
Budapest, Hungary
H-1078 Budapest
István u.2.	Tel.:(361) 478-4226
Fax: (361) 478-4227	
Email: Szabone.Szavay.Judit@aotk.szie.hu

Service Quality Improvement Program in Hungary

•	Started: 2002
•	Members of working team: academic and public libraries
•	Task: adaptation of the international standard (ISO-11620:1998)
•	Goal: common approach to application

Call for application

•	54 libraries all over the country
•	Acceptation of proposals preared by the committee
•	Using standardized methods
•	Compilation of questionnaires
•	Aggreement on the criteria of processing

Special situation

Being the only veterinary library in Hungary means that all the users involved in any aspect of animal health turn to our library with their special needs.

Demographic information

Who are the library users?

•	Professors and students
•	Researchers
•	Dealers of veterinary drugs or feeds
•	Officers of animal health administration
•	Practicing veterinarians
•	Zoologists
•	Laymen interested in animal related problems

Library Services

•	in-house use 
•	loan 
•	interlibrary loan
•	reservation 
•	use of databases
•	research
•	copy service 
•	impact factor / citation analysis
•	training in library informatics 

Basic questions

•	What to measure?
•	How to measure?
•	Why to measure?
•	Assessment

Performance indicators 

•	Population as user
•	Cost per user
•	Popularity of personal use
•	Cost of personal use
•	Availability of titles
•	Intensity of inhouse use
•	Use of the collection
•	Loan – lending collection ratio
•	Popularity of borrowing
•	Cost of loans
•	Lending productivity of librarians
•	Effectiveness of interlibrary lending
•	Proportion of lending/librarian to all interlending
•	Information searching:
•	-entries meeting minimal formal requirements
•	-entries meeting minimal subject requirements
•	Use of facilities:
•	-computers 
•	-copiers
•	-scanner
•	Use of seats
•	Time of document acquisition
•	Costs of document acquisition
•	Time of document processing

Which data were used?
(Library Report 31.12.2003.)
•	Number of users
•	Costs, recurrent expenditure
•	Personal use
•	Library collection
•	In-house use
•	Documents borrowed
•	Number of loans
•	Number of staff
•	ILL
•	Seats
•	Computer use
•	Copy service
Example 1.: ILL

Goal: Effectiveness of interlibrary lending
Method and calculation
•	registration of requests sent out and items received in a given period
•	number of documents received in a given period/number of documents requested in the given period * 100
Result: 96 %

Example 2: Availability of books

Goal: Rate of requested/provided titles from the library’s holdings (books for borrowing)
Method and calculation:
•	Questionnaire data gathering
•	number of titles provided/number of titles requested * 100
Result: 79 %

User Survey 1: for Students

•	Using the questionnaire elaborated by the Hungarian Library Institute
•	Duration: December 2003; February 2004
•	Number of questionnaires returned: 313
•	Respondents:
–	Hungarian students: 196
–	Foreign students: 117
= 100 %

It contained  4 main  chapters:
•	What did you do in the library?
•	What did you look for today?
•	To what extent are you satisfied with our library?
•	Write about yorself!

What did you do in the library?

•	Video - borrowing  / returning  /  prolongation of loan period
•	Book - borrowing  / returning  /  prolongation of loan period
•	CD -- borrowing  / returning  /  prolongation of loan period
•	Browsing
•	Information search / problem solving
•	Using library databases
•	Reading full text  electronic lecture notes / books / journals on the computer
•	Reading (printed) newspapers / magazines / journals
•	Participation at an event / looking at the exhibition
•	Using a computer 
•	Using the Internet for - e-mailing / information search / surfing
•	Learning / working / reading in the reading room
•	Using the copy machine
•	Something else:

What did you look for today?

•	How many documents did you take home (borrow) with you??		⃞⃞
•	Please, write the titles (if possible with authors) of the books which you have borrowed or wanted to borrow.
You were looking for a book and
			got it					⃞
			did not get it			⃞
You did not look for this but found it		⃞	

•	Information search, 
reference, referral:		yes	  	partly		no
If you wanted to solve 
a problem, did you
succeed?				⃞	     ⃞		⃞

Did you use the 
librarian’s help?			⃞	     ⃞ 	          ⃞

To what extent are you satisfied with our library?

1.	The outfit of the library	
2.	The interiors of the library	
3.	Free access to the library	
4.	Free and easy movement inside the library	
5.	Signs and information tables	
6.	Arrangement and division of the library’s interiors	
7.	The number and quality of sears and tables 
8.	Opening hours		
9.	Computer lab (EIS)		
10.	Number and quality of books	
11.	Number and quality of other documents
12.	Waiting time for services		
13.	Helpfulness of librarians		
14.	Information and reference services
15.	Computers		
16.	Your opinion about the library as a whole 

Possible answers to the questions

•	Very satisfied
•	Quite satisfied
•	Fairly satisfied
•	Rather dissatisfied
•	Very dissatisfied

Evaluation
1. What did  you do in the library?

Question	Number of answers	Percentage	
Borrowing	102	32,59 %	
Browsing	77	24,60 %	
Reference question	73	23,32 %	
Online materials	33	10,54 %	
Periodicals	78	24,92 %	
Computers	139	44,41 %	
Internet	172	54,95 %	
In house use	224	71,57 %	
Copy service	69	22,04 %	
Other	17	5,43 %	

Evaluation
2. What did you do today?

Type of service
	Number of answers	Percentage	
Books	37	11,82 %	
Got it	61	19,49 %	
Didn’t look for it, but get some	8	2,56 %	
Reference/
Information	184	58,79 %	
Successful	130	70,65 %	
Partly successful	49	26,3 %	
Not successful	5	2,72 %	

Conclusions

•	Most popular activities: 
–	inhouse reading, studying (72%)
–	Internet use (55%)
–	Computer use (44%)
10-15% of students „living” in the library.
•	Information searching (59%) 
–	2/3rd successful
Borrowing is not so important than information gathering.

•	User satisfaction: grade „4”
+	helpfulness of librarians
+	building and interior of the library
+	reference service
-	Number of copies of books, computers, seats
Financial constraints cause reasons of dissatisfaction.
•	Users: 66% comes several times to the library
•	Needs: more computer (36%), less noise (25%), longer opening hours (20%), study rooms (12%)
The university should povide more computer facilities, and more space for the library (for study rooms, etc.)

User Survey 2: for veterinarians 

Special questionnaire
Type of data:
•	Personal (age, workplace/s)
•	Availability of computer/Internet
•	Professional information sources
•	Preferred form of information
•	Emergency information sources
•	Barriers to information gathering
•	Home library
•	Customs of library use
•	Electronic services

Evaluation 1.

Sex	
Percentage	
Male	90 %	
Female	10 %	

Age	Percentage	
20-30	10 %	
31-40	27 %	
41-50	20 %	
51-60	10 %	
61-70	7 %	
71-80	23 %	

Evaluation 2: Computer using

Function	Percentage	
Private	66 %	
Patient records	57 %	
Drug records	40 %	
Ordering (drug, etc.)	13 %	
Legislation	33 %	
Professional correspondance	50 %	
Multimedia, internet	36 %	

Evaluation 3: Information sources

Sources	Percentage	
Hungarian articles	4,4 %	
Foreign articles	3,8 % 	
Books	12,4 %	
Conferences	3,8 %	
Further training	11,7 %	
Promotional materials	2,3 %	
Colleguaes	12.3 %	
Websites	3,6 %	
Mailing lists	5,5 %	
TOC	3,2 %	
Database (Internet)	3,7 %	
Database CD ROM	2,8 %	
Full-text journals	3,7 /	
Full-text books	3,8 %	
Veterinary Science Library	3,9 %	
Other academic libraries	2,6 %	
public libraries	2,6 %	

Preferred form of information

Personal	80 %	
By phone	37 %	
Paper form	53 %	
By fax	10 %	
Floppy	13 %	
E-mail	50 %	
Direct from the Internet	37 %	

Home library

SOURCE	Home	Workplace	
Hungarian books	83 %	30 %	
Foreign books	57 %	23 %	
Hungarian journals	60 %	23 %	
Foreign journals	17 %	3 %	
CD	44 %	10 %	
Internet	27 %	7 %	

Barriers to information gathering

Lack of time	67 %	
Costs	33 %	
Lack of facilities	23 %	
Lack of information literacy	37 %	
Abundance of information	3 %	
Language barrier	40 %	

Using library services

Library informatics	47 %	
Borrowing	87 %	
ILL	33 %	
Copy	B: 87%; A:90%; ILL:40%	
In house use	93%	
Literature searching	33 %	
Web-site browsing	27 %	
Scientometric analyses	20 %	
Factual information	43 %	
Museum	33 %	

Conclusions

•	Further research is required, especially among non-users
•	The computer and the internet play an important role in the information gathering of veterinarians.
•	The library should take part in the improvement of computer literacy and information searching of veterinarians.
•	The library should improve its online services, and focus on the acquisition of full text sources.

For more information…
Please, visit the poster presentation of 
Eva Orban on Friday