FACTORS AFFECTING USER SATISFACTION IN A MEDICAL LIBRARY AND A COMPARISON WITH OTHER TYPES OF LIBRARIES (PERFORMANCE MEASURES, SERVICES, COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY)

Determination of book availability is one of the recommended methods for measuring library effectiveness, or providing books/documents to library users according to their needs. The method has been proven useful in a number of earlier studies carried out in America and England. In the present study this is tested by a survey using a questionnaire form in order to determine user satisfaction in getting titles in the Cleveland Health Sciences Library (CHSL).; The results are analyzed utilizing a branching technique developed by Kantor in 1976 which measures the various factors affecting book availability in terms of user satisfaction. This study aimed particularly at measuring to what extent the user requests for books were satisfied and what were the causes underlying dissatisfaction. Investigations were carried out to determine dissatisfaction and the status and location of the books found by the users. Seven factors were examined which affect book availability with and without the help of the librarian. These factors were user bibliographic errors, collection development policy failure, acquisition policy failure, user catalog errors, circulation policy failure, library failure and user search errors.; A comparison was made of the results obtained from this study with the results of other studies obtained from other types of libraries.; The results of the analyses showed that the overall rate of book availability in CHSL was 58.4% without the help of the librarian and 62.2% with the help of the librarian. The lowest performance factor was found to be the acquisition policy performance which is the main cause of non-availability of books in CHSL. The most important finding from this study is that this type of analyses to determine library effectiveness can be used as a practical decision aid in managing basic library service. The study recommends and suggest various measures that can be helpful for improving library services in terms of user satisfaction.; The uniqueness of the present study is that it is carried out in a medical library using seven different factors. Also it characterizes in detail collection development and acquisition policies, and emphasizes their usefulness in book availability measures. In the light of observed results and comparison with earlier studies, it attempts to generalize the available methods.