LIS Survey Looks at Use Patterns

The Middlebury Library and Information Services (LIS) conducted the Measuring Information Service Outcomes (MISO) survey earlier this month and is planning to announce its results in the next few weeks.

These results will allow LIS to detect areas of the different Internet platforms managed by both the Library and the Information Technology departments that need improvement.

Middlebury was one of five schools to participate in the pilot of the MISO survey when it was introduced in the fall of 2005. The survey has thereafter been conducted biennially at many colleges around the country, including 39 this year with 15 new participating schools for a total of 99 participating institutions.

The survey targets higher education institutions that have merged library and IT departments. It provides a framework to assess the satisfaction, importance and frequency of use levels for many of the services offered through these different establishments.

“[The survey will be used to] gauge satisfaction, importance and frequency of use for various library and IT services, reference services, eBook collections, email use and Moodle,” said Terry Simpkins, LIS director of research and instructional services. In past years, LIS has had notable difficulties with wireless printing, and new services, such as the Portal, have struggled to gain traction among the student body.

The results of these surveys are presented at different conferences around the United States, such as the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference. The results are also shared with members of the Council on Library and Information Resources’ Chief Information Officers group.

This year, 700 Middlebury College students, faculty and staff members were randomly selected to take the survey. The College’s 61.7 percent participation rate exceeded the national response rate of 53 percent.

“We use the results to evaluate what services we evaluate to be important, but maybe have a lower satisfaction level than we would like, and we try to see who are the common culprits; printing, wireless, amongst others,” Simpkins said.

“It really lets us get some empirical data instead of gut reaction or anecdotal evidence. I pitch the different trends in order to plan our priorities to set goals in the coming years; it’s not a survey that is put in the drawer,” he added.

LIS uses this information in order to ameliorate the community members’ access to platforms such as Moodle, the eBooks or even Bannerweb.

“We not only ask [MISO] to compare the Middlebury results across time, but also to compare Middlebury’s results with those of other institutions,” Simpkins said.

The survey allows the College to compare its services with those of other institutions as well as with satisfaction in past years.

“Based on previous surveys, a recurring issue that arose concerned copyright advice,” Simpkins said, adding that the LIS was looking into ways to improve this parameter.

The survey will be distributed to different areas within LIS, such as Curricular Technologies, the Helpdesk and Inter-library loan systems for closer analysis.

“[The teams] are then able to identify what factors they have control over, and how they could change them if they need some help,” Simpkins said. “For example, the technology help desk will look at the survey and see what the consensus is about that.”