Beyond Providing Information: An Analysis on the Perceived Service Quality, Satisfaction, and Loyalty of Public Library Customers

Abstract

Abstract This study investigates the customers’ perceptions on three traditional dimensions of the perceived library service quality (library personnel; library resources and user services; and facilities and equipment), customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty of the public library users. Survey data using simplified questionnaires were analyzed which were collected from 1015 users of public libraries in 2015 and 2019 respectively in South Korea. The results show that they were generally satisfied with public library services and want to visit them again and/or recommend them to others based on the good perceptions on the public library service quality, because the means of each variable on a Likert 5-point scale was fairly high: customer satisfaction 3.85, customer loyalty 4.12, and perceived service quality 3.80 (library personnel 3.80, library resources and user services 3.81, and facilities and equipment 3.79). Each of three dimensions of perceived service quality had statistically significant positive impacts both on customer satisfaction and on the loyalty of the users, and that customer satisfaction had statistically significant positive impacts on customer loyalty. Different groups by gender, age, education, and occupation show the mean differences in customer loyalty. This article suggests research and managerial implications and limitations of the study.