The
UWO-CLA blog regularly publishes writings of its student members in
order to allow our them to express their thoughts and opinions on issues
in library and information science. These writings are not meant to
represent the views of the UWO-CLA itself or the greater CLA
organisation. Your comments and questions are encouraged on this blog.
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Feedback
By: Carl Sack
Carl Sack is in his third term of Western's MLIS program. He has previously received a BA in
History from UBC. He neither likes
nor dislikes long walks on the beach. He considers it perfectly natural to have a favourite
type of history, and even more so for that type to be social history.
Disclaimer: I have done no formal research on this topic, nor have I
seen the results of any of these types of surveys. This piece merely represents my personal opinions on the
subject.
It has
become increasingly common for libraries to solicit feedback from their patrons
using optional online surveys sent out by mass email. In the eight months I have spent living in London, I have
received surveys of this nature from the public library, from Western's general
library services, and from our own Graduate Resource Centre. And while this form of gathering
information about the needs of patrons has some definite points in its favour,
there are also certain limitations.
It therefore seems appropriate to look at some of the issues associated
with this method of research.
The main advantage in using an online survey to gauge the needs of
one's patrons is that it casts a very wide net. Libraries – academic ones in particular, but also public
ones – are increasingly becoming repositories of digitally stored information
rather than physical items. As
such, there will be a large portion of the population serviced by the library
whose main connection to its resources is through a computer. Online surveys are a quick, convenient
(and, it must be said, cheap) way to reach a wide swath of patrons in a way
that directly approaching them cannot do.
But
simply casting a wide net does not mean that it will capture all the things
within its reach. The patrons who end up responding to the survey will most
likely be patrons of a certain type.
Optional online surveys tend to garner responses from people who have
the time, inclination, and resources to answer them. And if there's one thing I've learned from my time in
post-secondary education, it's that there is no shortage of busy and/or
apathetic students in any given institution. Similarly, a public library's low-income patrons (to pick
one example) may lack the resources to respond to an email requesting their
thoughts on library services. If
our job as librarians is public service – and it is – then we must reach out to
all members of the community we serve, not just the ones who conform to a
certain profile. Relying
excessively on online surveys will only yield data from a portion of patrons,
and if we are to address patron needs to make our institutions better we must
endeavour to reach as large a percentage of this population as possible.
This
is not to say that online surveys have no place in this kind of research. As I mentioned above, they are a good
way of quickly gaining a large amount of information from quarters that might
not otherwise be reachable. And of
course, other methods of data collection all have significant flaws
(particularly with selection bias).
I am merely arguing that while they are a useful tool in gauging patron
needs, they should be used as a supplement to other kinds of data, such as
focus groups. If we become overly
reliant on any one perspective, it will inevitably cloud our judgment.
