Envisioning excellence in the Affect of Service, Information Control and Library as a Place: a LibQUAL+® assessment of Pakistani School Libraries

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the perceived, minimum acceptable, and desired service quality of School Libraries in terms of the Affect of Service, Information Control, and as a Place using a unique LibQUAL+® Urdu-translated version. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative survey research method and an instrument tool were used to conduct this study. The already available Urdu-translated version (translated for university library users) was content-validated and reliability-checked on 9th and 10th-grade students through two phases of pilot testing, content validation, and incorporation of suggestions. Then, for the final study, data were collected from 28 public and private sector school students in seven Tehsils of Sargodha District using equal-sized stratified convenience sampling. Findings Descriptive statistics show that the perceived service quality in Private and Public Schools exceeds the middle value of 4.5 on the 9-point Likert-type scale. However, students’ minimum acceptable and desired service quality are higher than the perceived quality in the Affect of Service, and Information Control categories. Library as a Place, however, scored higher than the minimum acceptable service quality. Inferential statistics reveal that male respondents rate the library quality significantly higher than female respondents. The results also indicate that the minimum acceptable level of library quality reported by government school respondents is significantly higher than that of private school students. Male respondents have reported significantly higher expectations than female respondents. Originality/value This study is the first to use the LibQUAL+® tool’s Urdu language version to investigate the libraries’ School Libraries service quality in Pakistan.