Best Practices

Conducting a Survey for a Government Agency

LAC Group

Our Client, a government agency, contracted LAC Group to update a Customer Satisfaction Survey and a Benchmark survey, last conducted in 2001, building on the existing instruments but updating them to reflect developments in library services and technology and in user requirements. The Agency wanted to track trends identified by the earlier surveys, so the new instruments needed to capture as much of the same data as possible, while also eliciting data that would evaluate the present and help them plan for the future. At the same time, the instruments could not be so long that respondents would not complete them.

Working closely with the Agency’s in-house library staff, the LAC Group consultants revised and updated the questions, developed instruments in SurveyMonkey software, tabulated and analyzed the results, and wrote a and presented a report for each survey. In addition to tracking trends from the previous Customer Satisfaction survey, LAC Group designed the updated survey to measure current user behavior and needs, and we included questions designed to measure users’ value of the Library and Library services as well as questions to measure their use of new tools and technologies such as blogs, RSS feeds, and PDAs and cell phones to gather information for their work and to learn about library services and resources. Our contract was subsequently modified to provide more detailed analysis of the customer satisfaction survey and to design and conduct an assessment of library support for the Agency’s publication program.

LAC Group began in 1986 as Library Associates Companies (LAC) and has grown into a unique and multifaceted professional services firm, providing disciplined and innovative library, legal, information and research staffing, consulting, project management and asset management services. www.LAC-Group.com