GALILEO User Survey 2007 Report

Measuring GALILEO Performance

The annual GALILEO survey is conducted to ascertain user satisfaction and usage habits of GALILEO resources. The 2007 survey was conducted from November 6 to November 12, 2007. All surveys were gathered via the GALILEO web site and could be completed at any time of the day or night. A total of 971 usable surveys were completed.

The highest percentage of submitted surveys came from the K-12 public school consortium (38.1%), followed by state four-year universities and colleges (19.1%). In 2006, the state four-year universities and colleges led at 23.9%.

Respondents were asked to self-identify their roles as GALILEO users. Librarians and media specialists comprised the largest population of respondents (21.7% and 15.3%, respectively); however, undergraduate students were close behind at 13.2%, followed by academic faculty and K-12 teachers. In an effort to better gauge user satisfaction and habits of end user populations, percentages were recalculated with librarians’ and media specialists’ responses removed.

On the survey, respondents were asked to specify their level of agreement to six statements about their satisfaction with GALILEO. These statements pertained to the reliability, responsiveness, and perceived value of GALILEO. Compared to responses on the 2006 annual survey, positive responses in which respondents marked “strongly agree” to each statement increased slightly in all areas. For example, in response to the statement, “I think GALILEO is a valuable service,” a total of 85.9% marked “strongly agree” in 2007 and a total of 79.2% in 2006 for a 6.7% increase. After removing librarians and media specialists from the mix, there was a 7.4% increase over 2006, with 82.5% of the respondents marking “strongly agree” to the statement. In fact, removing librarians and media specialists did not change the percentages of responses to any of the statements significantly. Charts and tables that show responses to questions with librarians and media specialists both included and removed are included in the survey report.

A new question on the 2007 annual survey asked where respondents found out about GALILEO. With librarians and media specialists removed, the highest percentage of users found out about GALILEO from their librarian or media specialist (37%), followed by respondents who identify themselves as long-time users (26.5%), followed by respondents who learned about GALILEO from a teacher (18.8%). With librarians and media specialists included, a total of 42.7% identify themselves as long-time users, followed by respondents who learned about GALILEO from a librarian or media specialist (27.8%).

The number of usable surveys returned (971) decreased 27% from last year’s total return (1332). Of the 971 respondents, 541 (56%) completed the open-ended question, “I would improve GALILEO by…” While the responses to the ranking questions on the survey instrument show a high satisfaction with GALILEO (for example, 97% agree or strongly agree that it is a valuable service) the open-ended question asks users to offer opinions about shortcomings or areas that need improvement, so it is understandable that the number of responses coded as negative will be high; however, 18% of the responses were positive comments. Some representative positive comments are below. More »