Comparing the effectiveness of alternative investigation methods for library environmental evaluation

The use of new technologies and the merging of our libraries have led us to think about
marketing our library services.
At the same time, Belgian universities in the French Community decided to conduct the
LibQual+ survey. We participated in the working group responsible for data analysis of this
survey regarding our institution. This gave us an initial assessment of the level of user
satisfaction in our library, pointing to general library strengths and weaknesses and
highlighting several questions to be investigated further.
We searched for alternative evaluation methods that could help us to validate the LibQual+
conclusions and to explore further certain issues regarding different library user groups
(students / researchers / clinicians / academic professors).
Methodologies for conducting focus groups, semi-structured interviews and participant
observations are largely described in the literature. We propose to test and compare these
methodologies in order to discover which method is the most appropriate for each type of user
and how far these approaches may be complementary. We also want to verify whether these
investigation strategies will lead to reproducible conclusions able to support strategic planning
for the library. Lastly, we need to decide whether these methods could also be used to
measure the impact of future marketing activities. It may be useful to share our working
procedures, conclusions and experiences with colleagues involved in similar marketing
challenge.