A framework for evaluating the quality of library services using the DEMATEL-SERVQUAL hybrid approach

Nowadays, public libraries by providing cultural, educational and scientific services to all groups of society, at urban and rural levels are considered as a main criteria for evaluating social welfare of nations. In analyzing social welfare criteria, the existence and extent of development of public libraries are in the range of housing, education, employment and health are considered as one of the indicators of the countries' development. Reaching more users and readers and increasing their willingness to re-visit the library lead to increases the efficiency of public resources. Every library needs to provide good, efficient and effective services, given the growing competition between information systems and the diverse needs of libraries, libraries need to place special emphasis on quality of service to attract more users. And improve productivity. However, the productivity of libraries is influenced by users' perceptions and experiences of evaluating the library environment, available facilities, collection size, staff attitudes, and reading activities in the library. Parasuraman (1988) proposed a comprehensive model to evaluate service quality that recognized as an important tools, to identification the difference in perceptions of service provided and expectations of the public libraries. A review of past studies in this area indicates that researchers have also used the SERVQUAL model to provide a framework for library service quality assessment. Given that quality of service is examined through several indicators and sub-indicators, it is very appropriate to apply multi-criteria decision-making techniques to evaluate service quality through SERVQUAL model. Among the multi-criteria decision-making techniques, the DEMATEL method successfully illustrates the internal relationships between variables. This study aimed to identify the indicators of service quality assessment among public and university libraries in Ahvaz based on the SERVQUAL model and then examine the internal relationships between indicators and sub-indicators.

This research is applied in terms of purpose and in terms data collection it's considered as a descriptive-exploratory. The statistical population of this study consisted of all supervisors and senior managers of public and university libraries in Ahwaz city with at least 10 years of experience and sufficient research experience. Using purposive sampling method, 45 people were selected and 31 of them were returned to correctly questionnaires,