What do people think about public libraries in Barcelona? An unobtrusive evaluation of citizens’ views

Aida Pooladian1

Ángel Borrego2

 Universitat de Barcelona

Facultat de Biblioteconomia i Documentació

1. Aida.pooladian@gmail.com

2. borrego@ub.edu,

• Introduction

•What are public services ?•Why Public services ?•Study Motivation•Methods 1.Data collecting 2. Data Minning

•Results •Conclusions

What are public services ?

•Public services are provided by governments to people living within its jurisdiction, either directly or by financing provision of services.

Public services are for the public

SO,

It is very important to offer services based on their needs.

Public Libraries

.

•Accessible to the general public and are generally funded from public sources, such as taxes.

•One of those services playing a pivotal role in the development of a community.

Public services are for the public

SO

It is very important to offer services based on their needs

Some Points:

• It is necessary to know some preliminary conditions before setting up different kinds of libraries.

• The equipment in each library may differ according to library users.

• To understand the needs of users in some public libraries may be more difficult than in other libraries since large groups of people with different attitudes and needs are potential users of each type of library.

Study motivation To investigate the possibility of analysing comments about

public library services left in public networks, such as Google Maps, to improve our knowledge of citizens’ views.

The study is done thorough the following approach:

• To measure satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the users of public libraries

How did we measure satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the users of public libraries?

By using

Advancement of technologies, new and easier ways are available to communicate with users and receive

their reviewsGoogle Maps as a Public networks

Google Maps

•Google Maps is a desktop web mapping service developed by Google, very useful to retrieve primary information such as addresses, phones, opening hours and reviews about the place that has been searched

Specifically, the study aims are to measure satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the users of public libraries about:

• Location • Schedules• Staff• Atmosphere• Layout• Collection• Equipment & Facilities• Architecture• Activities• General comments

Previous studies

• Sin, S. J., & Kim, K. (2008)

• Park, S. J. (2012)

• Demaagd et al. (2013)

• Horrigan et al. (2015)

• Horrigan et al. (2016)

 Methods:Data Collecting

• Retrieved the 284 reviews available in Google Maps

• About the 28 public libraries

• In the city of Barcelona

 Methods:Data Mining

1. Comments were read repeatedly to capture key thoughts, allowing 9 categories

2. The reviews were organized and grouped into meaningful clusters

3. The reviews were analysed using a qualitative content analysis method to identify major themes in citizens’ reviews

Descriptions for each category are reported

• Location: access to public transport, distance to other facilities, public parking, neighbourhood, etc.

• Schedule: opening hours including weekends and holidays.

• Staff: behaviour, management, etc.

• Atmosphere: silence, temperature

• Layout: size of study hall, space distribution

• Collection: update and completeness, document types, presence of foreign languages

• Equipment and facilities: furniture, wireless, plugs, elevator, toilets, special furniture for children

• Architecture: beauty, design and comfort for people with disabilities

• Activities: cultural, scientific and social events

• General comments about the library

Results

• Number of positive and negative reviews

Reviews No. %Positive 416 73,2Negative 152 26,8Total 568 100%

Results

More frequently categories in Barcelona´s Public Libraries

• Most of the reviews are about Equipment & Facilities.

• The second is category is that of General comments.

• The third one is Atmosphere immediately followed by Collection.

ResultsCompare the amount of positive and negative reviews in each group:

• Activities, General, Location add Staff have the larger amoung of positive reviews.

• Schedule, Layout and Atmosphere concentrate most of the negative comments.

Results

   Category Locatio

n

Schedule

Staff

Atmosphere

Layout

Collection

Equipment &

Facilities

Architecture

Activitie

s

General

Positive/Negative

 P

 N

 P

 N

 P

 N

 P

 N

 P

 N

 P

 N

 P

 N

 P

 N

 P

 N

 P

 N

% of reviews

84,9

15,1

35

65,4

81,8

18,2

62,9

37,1

57,63

42,37

75,41

24,59

66,01

33,98

70,37

29,63

100

0 82,8

17

Number of reviews

45 8 9 17

36

8 39

23

34

25

46

15

68

35

38

16

40

0 53

11

Total 53 26 44 62 59 61 103 54 40 64

Conclusions & Suggestions

• Our results show that around quarter of users are satisfied about public libraries services in Barcelona

• Make rules not to reserve chairs & tables for friends

• Limiting hours of schools visiting

• Open Libraries at Weekend & Holidays

Conclusions & Suggestions

• Open all Reading rooms when libraries are crowded

• Note librarians to those people who speak together & make noise

• Built air freshener system for libraries that are close to supermarkets and restaurants

• Revise the layout of shelves, tables &chairs to make more space for study

Thank you!