Case study: Scottish Executive Information Management Unit Information Services- Literature Search User Survey

Why we did this survey

“If information professionals are to measure the value of their services, they must talk directly to users and listen to what they have to say…, the concept of value can only be fully explored by going to the individual user directly, within a specific context.”

It is very important for all departments within the Executive to be able to demonstrate their value in assisting effective formation and execution of policy. As Information Services stand one step back from the actual policy development process we decided that the best way to measure the value we provide was to survey our users about the impact we had on their policy work.

Design of the Survey

To get an accurate level of feedback we needed to contact people for whom Information Services had done a substantial amount of work, and thus were in a position to give an accurate assessment of our services and impact on their policy work. Therefore we focused our survey on staff for whom we had carried out full-scale literature searches in the previous year. We kept the survey as short as possible to maximize the number of responses. With this in mind, the survey consisted of the following questions:

1. What policy, or other project, did you request this search in connection with?

2. How important was the literature search in completing your work?

3. Please rate on a scale from 1 (little importance) to 5 (critical importance)

4. If the library was unable to offer this service could you foresee any problems in carrying out your work?

5. Any other comments about the services and resources we provide.

What difference do we make?

The findings were very positive about the value of the literature search service to the work of the Scottish Executive.

58.8% of users rated the literature search service to be of high to very high importance to their work. The most frequent comments received were relating to time-saving (60%) and reliance on the specialist information/research skills of Information Service staff (35%) with the reassurance that information professionals would carry out a thorough search.