User Satisfaction on Library Services in Anna University with Special Reference to Engineering Colleges in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu: A Study

Because of the technological innovations and the variety and abundance of information that are becoming available to information users, competitive pressures will continue to intensify engineering college libraries. In the above perspective, evaluating and guaranteeing customer satisfaction in the long term is an integral part of quality management in libraries. Quality is defined as “all of the characteristics and features of a product or a service which relate to their suitability for fulfilling fixed or given requirements”. Surveys are used to gather individual opinions and to compress them into an overall evaluation, which then serves as the basis for an analysis of strengths and weaknesses. Keeping the above in mind this paper refers to an in-depth study on user satisfaction of library services rendered by engineering colleges in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.The survey was conducted in 32 engineering college libraries. The data was collected in the form of questionnaire. On benchmarking the study reveals that all the users need better services, reliability, responsiveness, timeliness, honesty and a caring approach. Bridging the gap between services offered by the libraries of these engineering colleges and the needs / expectations of users remain a challenging and uphill task which is being presented, proposed and conducted.