Designing a Church Library Survey (Part IV)

Compiling Results

After receiving all the completed surveys (or as many as you’ve managed to collect) mark each tabulated survey clearly so that numbers are not counted twice and your results are correct.

Creating charts and graphs from multiple-choice etc. questions will make the results more readable and establish a higher impact with interested parties. Open-ended data can be presented through excerpts and additional comments.

The results of the survey can be used to:

• Define future needs
• Connect with potential patrons
• Market the library
• Share findings with others church librarians.

Finally, a few quick and dirty tips from Grammar Girl on writing surveys:

1)    Define the goal of the survey

2)    List your questions logically and group together similar topics

3)    Put the easier questions first

4)    Put lengthy, difficult or sensitive questions last

5)    Ask one thing at a time

6)    Avoid biased questions

7)    Thank your respondents!

Resources and Examples of Surveys:

Maine State Library

http://www.maine.gov/msl/mrls/resources/surveys/index.shtml

Islington United Church

http://www.islingtonunited.org/Library_survey_2012.shtml

Park Street Church Library

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=poEf8k7gESs9mevnHocmHw_3d_3d

Crown and Cross Church Library

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NH9XKCX

Designing a Church Library Survey (Part III)

Questions to Ask

You’ve established the why and the who – now it’s time to determine the what. Types of questions to ask on the survey:

• Frequency of use
• What materials do you use?
• Why do you use those materials?
• Improving the collection
• Improving the facilities
• Potential new services

It’s a good idea to use both closed (yes/no, Likert scale or multiple choice questions) and open (written response) questions in a survey, although close-ended questions are easier to answer and will more likely to get more results. Open-ended questions allow for more in-depth answers but take more time to formulate and tabulate. They also take more effort on the part of the user to complete. It is recommended that an open-ended question take up only 10% of a survey.

Since a library, more so in the case of a church library, is based on a business plan with no actual anticipated revenue, it is important to determine its actual value. If not for the budget proposal then for one’s own personal insight on how services and materials can be improved. A few ways that a survey can assist measuring value is:

• Saving time and/or money
• Formulate new ideas
• Awareness of expectations
• Increasing confidence
• Improve process
• Obtain bigger budget
• Remove redundancy

(Next time: Compiling Results)

Designing a Church Library Survey (Part II)

Beginning Your Survey

The survey process first begins with figuring out what topics need surveying. For a smaller library with a small patron base, a short and to the point survey is probably better. This means a questionnaire that can be completed in 10 minutes or less. A survey is often used to find out about:

• Satisfaction with current services
• Users’ awareness of library services
• Needs for other kinds of information
• Unmet needs in the library and how they can be accomplished
• Responsiveness to requests
• Effectiveness of outreach services
• How the library can provide better service in general.

A survey form should always be pleasing to the eye, uncluttered and easy to follow. Staying in touch with patrons is always an ongoing process. Sometimes it’s best to start simple, like with a single-issue survey, and moving on to something more complex in the future.

Secondly, figure out the logistics of the survey:

• Who will be surveyed
• How will the questions be formatted?
• How will the questions be clear and relevant?
• How will validity be measured?
• How many questions will be included?
• How will the survey be printed and distributed?
• How will the completed surveys be collected?
• How can you encourage users to return the surveys?
• How will the results be calculated and distributed?
• How will the results be used?

 (Next time: Questions to ask on the survey)

Designing a Church Library Survey (Part 1)

It was a bright winter’s day when it suddenly occurred to me that I should consider creating a survey for the church library. Recently, the fellowship committee in our church sent out a questionnaire to the congregation on the topic of the weekly coffee social following the service. Having never sent out a survey myself for the church library, I thought that it was high time that this important outreach ministry be examined at close range.

Since I didn’t have any real experience creating a survey, I did some research on ye olde Internet. I found a really fantastic article by George Plosker from Online magazine. Granted, the article was over 10 years old but its contents were still relatively applicable, as most items or suggestions were of a practical nature. The following is a summary of Plosker’s article Conducting User Surveys: An Ongoing Information Imperative with the information extracted that would be most useful in a church library setting.

Does creating a survey sound like too much work? Here’s a helpful, if not convincing, hint: If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it!

To begin, a survey will do all the following:

• Reveal issues or opportunities
• Identify needs
• Obtain information for strategic planning
• As a bonus – a survey serves as a great marketing tool!

Statistics found that one unhappy customer will tell nine to 13 customers about his or her bad experience, and only 4% of unhappy customers actually complain to the company. So it’s good to know where your patrons are at in order to be aware of needed improvements!

(Next time: Beginning your survey)