مدونة المكتبات العربية

Libraries of Private Egyptian Universities: A Survey Study A Thesis submitted for the Master of Arts Degree in Library and Information Science By Salah Mohamed Fahmy Ali Hegazi Under the supervision of Professor Dr. Mahmoud Afify Summary In 1992, a legal act was issued to initiate the beginning of private universities in Egypt, and Mr. President has signed the legal executive plan for private universities in 2002. Accordingly, four private universities have started: Misr University for science and Technology (MUST), Misr International University (MIU), October for Modern Science and Arts (MSA), and 6th of October University. It is expected that these private universities will overcome problems facing government universities, especially, in the shortage of financing libraries and research. Each of the above mentioned private university has very high financial budget, owns huge campuses and attractive buildings, and charge very high fees. But nothing is known about their libraries, no regulations are imposed on private universities to allocate a certain percentage of their resources for the annual increase of its library collections or for the introduction of advanced technology (computers and software purchases), or for the improvement and extension of library services to the community. In chapter one an introduction of the study is given. The statement of the problem and the objectives are highlighted, the hypotheses to be tested, sources of the data, limitations of the study and some related literature in the research area are also given. The study aims to identify each of the four libraries and to describe their constituents and elements, and how do these libraries meet the Association of College and Research libraries (ACRL) standards. The study aims, also, to evaluate the quality of the services provided in each library of the four private universities, and how the perceived services are compared to the services expected by library users, and is the differences between the perceived and the expected services statistically different in each library? And between libraries? To reach the above goals, the researcher gathered data using a checklist for the identification of the components and elements of each library, and collected data via a questionnaire to evaluate the quality of services provided. In chapter two, the researcher presented the basic elements that are required and should exist in an academic library. The researcher classifies these requirements into: physical such as buildings; non-physical such as man-power, policies, and collections development; and into technical requirements such as computers, software, and the Internet. The researcher also presented the ACRL academic libraries standards, and how they are qualitatively and quantitatvely measured. In chapter three, academic library services were introduced in details. These services include: references, circulation, periodicals, interlibrary loan, and bibliographical, current awareness, selective dissemination of information, photocopying, optical discs, databases, Internet, user education, distance learning, and community services. This chapter also includes how to evaluate these services. The SERVQUAL model introduced in 1988 by Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry was used. The model includes five gaps in services, but the fifth gap is the end product of the other four. The fifth gap measures the differences between the perceived services and the expected services as library users evaluate them. There are five dimensions to be measured in the fifth gap: tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy dimensions. In chapter four, the researcher analyzed the collected data from the checklists and the questionnaires. Checklists were filled in by library managers in the four private universities. Checklists include items that describe the library: areas, collections, employees, technical systems used, and in general how the library operates. The four universities libraries are compared to the ACRL standards, compared to each other and also compared on some items to Helwan University (as an example of government universities). Collected data from the questionnaire were also analyzed. Only MSA and October 6th universities libraries agreed on the participation of their library users to fill in the questionnaire. Each participant filled in a two-side page questionnaire, one for the perceived services and the other for the expected services. Each questionnaire (side) included 22 items to be checked on a scale between 1 and 7 ( Likert Scale).Those 22 items cover the five dimensions of the fifth gap. Questionnaire data were analyzed using the SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science). Descriptive measures were obtained for the demographical variables and for each of the perceived and the expected dimension, for each of the two participating universities. Also, paired t-test was used to compare the perceived and the expected dimensions for each library, and independent t-tests were applied to compare the perceived and the expected dimensions between the two participating libraries. Results were reported and recommendations were given in the conclusion.

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