• What's Important to you?
• What do we get right?
• What's improved since last time?
• Identified areas for improvement
• Library Client Comments
• Research behaviours
• Actions Planned and Taken

What is the Library Experience Survey?

This survey is your chance to tell us what you want from your Library.

The Library has been running the survey since 2000. It is coordinated by Insync, a behavioural research group that has been analysing the performances of Australian University Libraries for many years.

The custom-designed questionnaire investigates student and staff levels of satisfaction with facilities and equipment, service quality and delivery, and the performance of library staff.

The survey allows us to benchmark our performance against other Australian and New Zealand university libraries.

Your honest feedback allows us to identify areas or services that need improvement. We run the survey every two years so we can confidently say we are addressing needs and concerns and building a better Library.

The last survey was in August/September 2021.

What were the  2021 Survey Results and Outcomes?

More than 1,500 students and staff responded to the survey. We asked about your research behaviours and how you seek information. Respondents told us about their preferences, and it is encouraging to note that overall 77% research a topic by looking first for items in One Search (our discovery layer). This was followed by using Google or another search engine to find relevant resources.

The survey results help Library and Information Services staff identify what services and resources are most important to clients, how we are performing in the delivery of these services and resources, and to identify priority areas for improvement. The library recorded an overall score of 82.5% (an improvement on 2018) which places us in the top 25% of participants in the benchmark participant group.

What do you think we do best?

You told us that our top ten areas of performance are:

1. Wireless access
2. Off campus access to library resources and services
3. Library staff providing help  when it's needed
4. Providing accurate answers
5. Responding quickly to enquires
6. Providing information resources
7. Face to face services
8. Access to information resources relevant to studies and research
9. Online enquiry services (like chat)
10. Computers available when you need them

What has improved since the last survey?

The actions taken in response to the 2018 survey have pleasingly resulted in improved scores in 2021. We have reduced the gap between importance and performance for:

• Finding a quiet place to study
• Items I'm looking for are available online
• Laptop facilities
• Ease of navigation of our web site
• Finding places for group work
• Readings and textbooks meeting learning needs
• One Search finding resources quickly
• Online resource usefulness for study
• The library being a good place to study

Identified areas for improvement

The good news is that there are no significant gaps between importance and performance. All the gaps identified in the 2018 survey have decreased. However, in the 2021 survey the top 10 gaps are:

1. Finding a quiet place to study in the Library

• 7.5% improvement over 2018 but remains the top issue in the gap analysis.

2. Library web site navigation

• 7% improvement, but has moved up to second in gap ranking

3. Places for group work in the Library

• 10% improvement but remains third in the gap ranking

4. Readings  and  textbook access meeting  study needs

• 9% improvement but moves up from fifth to fourth

5. Online availability of resources

• 20% improvement moves down from second to fifth

6. One Search

• 11% improvement but moves up to sixth from eighth

7. Usefulness of online resources

• 15% improvement but moves up to 7th from 9th

8. Access to key library resources through Learn JCU

• First time this question has been asked

9. Laptop facilities

• 42% improvement has moved this to ninth down from third

10. Library is a good place to study

• 24% improvement and remains at tenth in the gap ranking

Library Client Comments

We received 1,563 comments, approximately 70% from undergraduate students. The comments have been analysed and grouped into themes. Below are the top 5 themes by campus.