Qualitative Approach and Grounded Theory for Assessing Users' Evaluation of Library Service: City Library Network of Perugia a case of study

The paper presents the aims, the methodology and the preliminary results of a still in progress investigation about users of four libraries from the City Library Network (1 main Library and 3 satellite public libraries) of Perugia, a city in the Centre of Italy with 160.000 inhabitants. The research has the final intent to explore satisfaction, motivations and perceptions of both real and potential users through the methods of qualitative and quantitative research. It is also a reflection about the method, under the assumption that the dichotomy “qualitative vs quantitative” is overtaken and the two approaches are deeply complementary. On the operational front, the investigation has considered both the supply of questionnaires to evaluate the satisfaction and qualitative interviews joined to focus group sittings to expand on some aspects appeared from the questionnaires, and to investigate not only the “how much” and some variables frequency but especially the “why”. The research basic idea is that if there is the will of a deep investigation, reading the results of questionnaires based on the Likert scale, in numbers from 1 to 5 there are personal motivations and satisfaction levels of which causes are often ignored: in fact satisfaction can be established by different reasons and not only by one service but also by a general approach and user mood. This idea is certainly valid for adults and even more for kids and young people, who often discriminate the library service because it keeps them away and negatively influence their use. Since there are different expectations and needs in the same person, the aim of research has been the service improvement and communication and figure new position, in addition to the identification of ideal user profiles to recreate the service. This final operation is not linked to a simple market segmentation with socio-demographic variables. Finally a consideration about the relation between empiric research and theoretical speculation: the risk of an empiric research based on concepts (qualitative research) and not on variables (quantitative research) is considering less important data, not producing an original reflection and not helping the theory development. Moving from the assumption that this risk is well-known and the empiric research seldom produces an interpretative theory with analyzed events in social modern sciences, it has been tried to verify if the application of Grounded Theory Methodology can be valid and the Atlas.ti program can guarantee more objectivity in case of qualitative methods.