Students’ expectations and perceptions of the services provided by the Law Library, Pietermaritzburg Campus, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
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Date
2022
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Abstract
The study aimed to investigate final (4th) year law students’ expectations and perceptions as
well as satisfaction with the services provided by the Law Library on the Pietermaritzburg
(PMB) campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). A law library can be seen as
the “heart” of a law faculty in a university and it is imperative that the services provided by
the library are constantly evaluated to ensure that they are meeting the needs of the students.
The study was underpinned by the SERVQUAL model developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml
and Berry (1985). The model is based on the idea of user-centred assessment and identifies
five potential gaps between expectations and perceptions of service delivery. Gap 5 was the
focus of this study which is the gap between the expected service offered to clients by an
organisation and the perceived service delivered. In line with SERVQUAL use was made of
the LibQUAL questionnaire the validity and reliability of which has been well established in
the academic library context. LibQUAL-based studies done in academic libraries in South
Africa were reviewed as well as a selection of LibQUAL studies done internationally
(including Africa).
The study adopted a largely quantitative approach and all 174 final-year law students
registered on the PMB campus in the first semester of 2021 were surveyed using an online
questionnaire made available via Google Forms. Thus, no sampling was done and 103
students completed the questionnaire giving a response rate of 59.2%, which was considered
“good” and thus adequate for analysis and reporting of results.
As to be expected and in line with the literature, expectations of library services in all
instances exceeded perceptions of those services and there were thus gaps between the two.
However, the size of the gaps between the different services varied. The most problematic
services were “Staff who instil confidence in users”, “Staff who are consistently courteous”,
“Easy-to-use access tools that allow me to find things on my own”, “Staff who give users
individual attention”, and the library “Helps me distinguish between trustworthy and
untrustworthy information”. In terms of satisfaction with library services, while a majority of
respondents were satisfied with how they were treated in the library and with the overall
quality of the services provided these were small majorities. Finally, slightly less than half of
the respondents were satisfied with the library’s support for their legal studies. Recommendations stemming from the significant findings and conclusions and directed at library management were made and suggestions for further research were given.
Description
Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.