The document summarizes UConn's use of virtual focus groups across its six campus library system. It discusses how virtual focus groups were conducted using WordPress blogs to get feedback from students on specific questions about library services. Common themes that emerged from the focus groups are summarized for each question, along with recommendations for addressing issues. The experiment found that virtual focus groups provided detailed comments and engagement from students without incentives. Overall, the virtual focus groups proved to be an effective assessment tool for the regional campus libraries.

1. VIRTUAL FOCUS GROUPS

2. UCONN – A SIX CAMPUS SYSTEM
1=Storrs
2=Avery Point
3=Greater Hartford
4=Torrington
5= Waterbury
6=Stamford

3. There Are Five Regional Campuses
Waterbury West
Hartford
Avery
Point
Torrington
Stamford

4. We…
Have about 20% of the
UConn student population
Are commuter campuses
Offer 4-year Undergraduate
Degrees including

5. We…
Are the headquarters or primary sites for some
important University programs:
Bachelor of General Studies
Marine Science: Bachelor, Master & PhD
NEAG School Teacher Certification
Program for College Graduates: Master
Public Policy, Department of: Master
Social Work, School of: Master & PhD

6. Big Programs/Limited Staff
• Our staff ranges from 5.5 FTE at the largest
library to 1.5 FTE at the smallest.
• Our student to staff ratios at the biggest two
libraries are over 400/1.
• We must regularly “read” the wishes of our
clientele to assure that our human resources
are used effectively on priority needs.

7. How We Read The Tea Leaves
• University Libraries have been conducting
formal service satisfaction assessments for
over 15 years.
• Main two instruments have been ARL’s
LibQual and a home grown User Survey. Both
are “strategic” in nature.
• Growing interest in “tactical” surveys with
more focused questions and results.

8. Strategic v. Tactical
Strategic Surveys:
*Allow senior managers to review performance and direction
of the organization
*Are sometimes referred to as “baseline surveys”
*Are used to redefine issues that front line managers must
focus on and which can then be measured with tactical surveys
Tactical Surveys:
*Allow service management on an ongoing basis
*Are conducted by front line managers
*Use simple continuous tracking measures
*Are based on factors which can be controlled by front line
managers
-- Handbook of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Management. Hill & Alexander, 2006.

9. Why Focus Groups?
A Well established and credible assessment tool
“designed to obtain perceptions on a defined
area of interest.”
“…are often used in the study to define the
concept of satisfaction and discover the
conditions or circumstances that influence
satisfaction.”
(Kreuger, Richard A. & Casey, Mary Anne. “Focus groups: a practical guide for
applied research”, 2009)

10. Why Focus Groups?
Susan Herbst, “Ears to the Ground”, Inside Higher Ed
(http://www.insidehighered.com/), June 7, 2011

11. Why Focus Groups
Strategic vs. Tactical Survey Comments
LibQual+ (Fall, 2010) for Greater Hartford Campus
180 Survey Responses
80 comments, 60% of which were “I like the library”
or “I like the staff”
Trecker Library Virtual Focus Group, Spring, 2011
6 Virtual Focus Group Members
100 comments specific to library use and needs.
Our goals: to gain relevance to responses and to garner
more responses

12. When they work well
• A well designed focus group is an exciting environment
where good ideas readily win support and bad ideas
are quickly discarded.
• Ideally, commentary mostly remains focused on the
topic and hand and never reaches a “personal” or
personally intimidating level.
• The information which comes out of such a session will
ideally hit at both the strategic and tactical levels of
planning and, if tangential comments are not
forbidden, can easily lead down some new,
unexpected and valuable paths.

13. When They Don’t Work Well
 Respondents may tailor responses to earn the
approval of the moderator or other
participants in the room.
 Focus groups are affected by the dynamic of
the group setting which can bring
interpersonal interactions, including conflict,
with a result of skewed results.
(Morgan, David L. “Focus Groups as Qualitative Research”, 1997).

14. When They Don’t Work Well
• Sessions are often dominated by a few
participants
• Concepts being discussed are often complex with
many voices chiming in and are frequently done a
disservice by the person taking notes who is
attempting to summarize what is being said in a
few words.
• Focus groups can be difficult to schedule and, if a
time constraint has been set, they frequently
conclude with a number ideas never coming to
the fore.

15. Why a Virtual Focus Group?
• To address past difficulties gathering staff and
students in one place at one time
• Lower usage of an important asset: Time
• Reduce pitfalls such as negative group
dynamics
• Lessen the influence of the moderator
• To gain a full, written record of all comments
• To gain comments specific to our needs

16. Our Experiment
• All five regional libraries using a common set
of questions
• Very focused questions
• Using Wordpress software because of blog
experience
• Relatively limited role for moderator
• No substantial incentive to participate
• Online survey of participants at end

17. 2012 Focus Group Purpose
Clarification of LibQual+ 2010 Terminology for RCL “Low Scoring”
Service Questions
Goal: Determine how LibQual 2010 respondents defined the five
service questions receiving the lowest adjusted “satisfaction” (i.e.,
“Perceived”) scores:
• The library helps me stay abreast of developments in my field(s)
of interest. 6.44
• Library space that inspires study and learning 7.15
• An online catalog that is user-friendly for finding materials 7.39
• The printed library materials I need for my work 7.23
• Employees who instill confidence in users 7.18

18. Developing a Virtual Focus Group
• Our initial step was to create common text for
our blog instruments.
• Next each library, using Wordpress, created a
blog unique to its setting. As part of set up, we
each took steps to assure that our blogs would
not be indexed on the internet as a way to avoid
unauthorized users.
• Invitations went out and we each secured a
number of undergraduate and, as appropriate,
graduate students.

19. Wordpress v. Google Blogger
Blogger: Wordpress:
Blogger:
Proved to be less flexible with graphics
Had an “Anonymous” reply option we couldn’t
remove
We already had experience with Wordpress

20. Wordpress & Privacy

21. Waterbury’s
Design

22. Torrington’s
Design

23. Torrington

24. Virtual Blogs In Action
• Students were asked to visit the blog to answer
each of the five questions and then to revisit
later as often as possible to respond to the
comments of others.
• Campus processes occurred at slightly different
times due to weather problems and other issues
but were active in late October and during
November.
• We took a very relaxed approach to moderation,
attempting to avoid active involvement which
might derail or divert discussions.

25. COMMENTS
AND
RESPONSES

26. Responses
to
Comments

27. LIBRARY BY
LIBRARY
“THEMES”

28. EXPLORATION OF COMMON“THEMES”
Themes. Because responses were narrative
in nature, each library examined its full set
of comments to discover “themes” in the
statements. Theme information for each
library was presented together in a report
appendix for comparative purposes. An
examination of all five sets yielded the
following frequently mentioned items
common to most libraries:

29. THEMES, QUESTION BY QUESTION, WITH
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION

30. COMMON THEMES BY QUESTION
1. Staying abreast of developments in field(s) of
interest:
a. Document Delivery/Inter-library loan
are necessary to find newest materials.
b. New paper books/journals are
important as way to keep up with new research.

31. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION
The library helps me stay abreast of developments
in my field(s) of interest. We (the Libraries) need
to make sure DD/ILL service remains adequately
staffed, supported and sustainable as usage grows
and/or as new needs surface. We (the RCLs) need
to consider ways in which to continue to acquire,
and to better advertise the existence of, paper
resources as an effective means of letting our
clients know what is happening in their fields of
interest.

32. COMMON THEMES BY QUESTION
2. Library space that inspires study and
learning:
a. Quiet space is very important.
b. A variety of types of spaces including
quiet and group study should be available.
c. Libraries need to be attractive with
good furniture and décor.

33. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION
• Library space that inspires study and learning.
We (the RCLs) have been moving in the right
direction with regard to the physical upgrading of
our library spaces. More needs to be done to
improve the comfort and ambience of our
libraries. Also, we know that our re-emphasis on
quiet, instead of group study spaces, was well-
timed but that we need to continue to assure a
variety of spaces at our locations. And “QUIET” is
a frequently used word for what is expected of
our environments.

34. COMMON THEMES BY QUESTION
3. User-friendly online catalog (note WorldCat
Local was in use at the time of the responses).
a. The catalog must be intuitive and very
easy to use.
b. Searches should quickly lead to
needed results.

35. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION
• An online catalog that is user-friendly for finding
materials. This concern has become somewhat
moot because LibQual 2010 was taken when
Worldcat Local was in place and now we have
Summon. It is likely, though, that suggestions
that our catalog be intuitive, easy to use, and
have it lead directly to usable results, are
universal without regard to platform. While the
RCLS have no direct way to change the catalog to
meet user needs we can certainly remain vigilant
for and report any issues that need addressing by
others.

36. COMMON THEMES BY QUESTION
1. Provision of paper resources:
Paper resources (books and journals) remain
important for helping library users stay
abreast of advances in their fields and also
to serve as examples of good researching,
writing and citing.

37. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION
• The printed library materials I need for my
work. The ongoing mention of a need for more
(or at least no lessening of) new book
acquisitions at the RCLs probably speaks to the
fact that the majority of our clients are
undergraduates who are often looking for recent,
authoritative overviews of topics instead of
research level databases and e-journals. The
RCLs may want to discuss how we can better
meet this need which seems to never go away.

38. COMMON THEMES BY QUESTION
1. Employees who instill confidence in users:
Well trained and confident library staff
members who are able to provide assistance
as needed are the most important aspects.

39. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION
Employees who instill confidence in users.
•A puzzling result -- When asked, our clients generally give
loud kudos to our staff members.
•One thing we do know from the comments, is that user
confidence is bolstered when the staff members they
encounter can confidently meet their needs.
•With the arrival of more self-service tools like online-
tutorials, our users will be gaining more confidence in their
abilities to meet their own needs.

40. Incentive or No Incentive?
Little interest in certificates or other “rewards”. One student remarked,
“We just want to help the library.”

41. 2012 POST VFG SURVEY

42. 2012 POST VFG SURVEY

43. 2012 POST VFG SURVEY

44. VIRTUAL FOCUS GROUPS

45. The 2011 Virtual Focus Group Team
• Avery Point. Jan Heckman
jan.heckman@lib.uconn.edu
• Greater Hartford. Bill Uricchio
william.uricchio@lib.uconn.edu
• Stamford. Phara Bayonne
phara.bayonne@lib.uconn.edu
• Torrington. Sheila Lafferty
sheila.lafferty@lib.uconn.edu
• Waterbury. Shelley Goldstein
shelley.goldstein@lib.uconn.edu