Managing and Assessing Internet Service Needs and Use of Under-Served Populations at Public Libraries

摘要

As the range of public library services with new technology has diversified, defining, measuring, assessing and managing the quality of these electronic services has become a critical issue. Internet connections at public libraries have increased dramatically since 1990 due to the availability of key external funding sources. The major goal of those funding sources was to expand public access to computers and digital information, especially for the public of low-income or under-served populations; thus, there has been continuing increase in public library Internet services at the library, for example, the services at Internet workstations. Although there have been attempts to measure the performance of public library network services by library and information science researchers using network statistics based on "technical-driven" performances, there has been little research dealing with service quality and satisfaction of Internet service users at the public libraries based on "user-driven" performance evaluation. This paper describes the process of survey research using 386 Internet service users at four public libraries and discusses how public libraries need to approach those under-served populations' Information needs and use at Internet workstations which can expand the possibility of new direction for future public library Internet services.