Yale University Library

Service Quality Improvement Council

Service Quality Improvement Council (SQIC)

October 16, 2002

3:00

SML 411

Present: Fred Martz, Holly Grossetta Nardini, Alan Solomon (Chair) Maryetta Russell (Recording)

Announcements

Holly announced that Jennifer Weintraub would take over as chair of the SQI Assessment Group in Holly’s absence.

Alan announced that SQI has completed training of participants in Virtual Reference. It will be implemented in late October or early November.

I. YUL Reader Survey

Danuta sent Alan the results of the YUL Reader survey. The largest gaps in not meeting expectations were in the following areas:

• Stack maintenance – materials in proper places and promptly re-shelved, easy to find, easy to browse stacks
• Document delivery – transmitted electronically to desktop, told delivery time for ILL, and delivered ILL in 1 week
• Photocopier service
• Library open when needed
• Signs
• OPAC accurate holdings information
• Highly efficient operations and activities

- Holly mentioned there is a large gap in what the readers perceive versus what we are doing.

- Alan suggested we take one of these areas and make it the Council’s project. He asked the group for suggestions. Holly suggested SQI take on the gap of “library open when needed,” and Alan made a suggestion of taking one that was not on the list – “customer service.”

Discussion followed on the following gaps:

• Stack Maintenance - Fred mentioned this is “hard to fix” in a short period of time and may be contingent on LSF funding.
• Document Delivery – Carol Jones has this under control.
• Photocopier Service – Debbie McGraw is looking into the copier situation.
• Library Open When Needed - Holly felt the library needed to be open more, and asked what kind of study could be done as to when we should be open. The top complaint was the need for a 24-hour room in the Cross Campus library.
• Improving Quality of Customer Service – Alan mentioned this was an important issue. He felt that improvement would require a long-term plan and not one-shot training. Discussion followed about the possibility of using a consultant to help SQIC with its service quality project. Alan will talk to Kate Reynolds about her role.

-Alan suggested SQIC should make “customer service improvement” their project. He will share this thought with those absent at the next meeting, and along with Holly, will present this idea to Danuta.

II. Charge for a Public Interfaces Committee

Those present discussed a draft charge for the Public Interfaces Committee, a group that will assume responsibilities of the Front Door Committee, OPAC Implementation Group, and SQI Bibliographic Access Group. Attention was given to whether the new committee should report to SQIC or the Library Systems Steering Committee (LSSI). It was recommended that the group report to the LSSC.

Meeting adjourned at 4:13 pm