Scientific method

They nevertheless forget an other important component which is also supposed to be ffered by the libraries if they argon to scram and increase their membership. This important component is customer caution. According to Jamier L. Scott (2002), from Wikipedia defines customer palm service as a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation. Thus the customer should feel at home when he or she is in the depository program program depository library and should leave while they be contented that they have really been careed.Customer care is the watchword in both private and public sectors as e move into the service age of 21st carbon (De Saez, 2002126). The client is firmly at the centre of missions and strategic policies. Libraries and information services must demonstrate this invariably and consistently if they are to succeed. The need to feel that one is respected i s vital to an individuals concept of self. De Saez (200266) argues that a take atmosphere abide be created by ply well trained in customer care.This marrow that I ibrary statt should be knowledgeable in customer care and should see to it that they maintain welcoming environment at all propagation. Library ustomers or applyrs should be welcomed warmly. De Saez (200275) further suggests that however, all library employees be encourage to recognise their very real role as salespeople for the organisation. Their role go away be to make a customer care a high- level priority, presenting a professional face at all times to establish and develop good public relations. Kotler et al (2008 n. ) says that todays companies are going beyond designing strategies to imbibe new customers and create transactions with them. Companies are now using customer relations management to declare customers nd build profitable, long-term relationship with them. Likewise libraries should use custome r relations management, customer care inclusive, to retain their customers or attract new members or users. Once a customer is mistreated and disappointed, he would non want to come back and result definitely be discouraging others from coming to the library sighting his experience of mistreatment as an example.Library provides need to be nice to their users if they are to continue implike the libraries. sift (199717) also argues that if you do not care for your customers you will surely go ut of business. The customer will definitely go where they feel that they are welcomed. This implies that in case of a library they will avoid coming to the library and prefer other information sources like the internet where they will not pick up hostility. So if people do not come to the library then the library will be dysfunctional.Therefore it is as well very important nowadays, like in some(prenominal) other business institutions for librarians to wield customer care in libraries. 1. 2 Background College of Medicine (COM) is one of the five constituent colleges of University of Malawi. other colleges are the Polytechnic in Blantyre, Chancellor College in Zomba, Bunda College of Agriculture in Lilongwe and Kamuzu College of Nursing with campuses in Lilongwe and Blantyre. COM was established in 1991 and enrolled returning students from abroad. Before the College was established, medical students were being sent to Australia, South Africa and the joined Kingdom.With the establishments of College of Medicine, the country is now training its own doctors locally. The students mode of enrollment is in two phases. The head start crowd is that of premedical students. This refers to O-level students. They study A-level light subjects like mathematics, chemistry, biology and physics. After successful completion, they are enrolled for five old age in the medical course. The other group is that of students with A-level science subjects obtained from Chancellor Colleg e, Kamuzu Academy or any other high school. These students are enrolled straight into the first year of medical course for five years.COM like any other institution of higher learning has a library at its campus. It is situated along Mahatma Ghandi road. For the first ten years, the library operated from the Polytechnic library complex until October 2000 when it moved to its present location (Mangumbi, 20061-2). The library is relatively small and a new and bigger one is under construction which is expected to be sedulous by the end of the year 2010. The mission of the library is to support teaching, learning and look for activities for the college by providing current information resources and promoting effective usage of library facilities.The community that the college of medicine butts is composed of the following. All academic, academic related and administration staff All registered students ot the college tor the entire duration ot their study Members f University of Ma lawi All college of Medicine members of staff Visiting lectures, interrogation fellows and other visitors Interns and other medical personnel and external paid up members. The COM library offers various services to its clientele. These are lending services (long loan and short loan), Reference services, Malawiana and interlibrary services bonnie to mention a few.In its holding the library also offers electronic resources like e-books and subscribes to online Journals through the Malawi Library and nurture Consortium (MALICO), WHO and INASP. The order includes CD-ROMs and DVDs hich are also lent to people. (College of Medicine 2009 Prospectus) 1. 3 Statement of the problem Although a library may provide a number of services to its clientele it is very important to serve these customers with courtesy and satisfy their needs in a friendly environment. No matter how well stocked the library may be, if it has hostile staff and environment then members will not be attracted to the re sources.They will definitely shun the library and opt for other information sources. Not only that, with information congest such as that available through the internet, some people may ot hesitate to stop patronizing the library if they feel are being ill treated at the library. It is for this reason that a question will be transported to regain out if there are customer services at College of Medicine. The enquiry will find out how clients are being treated if they come to the library. If they have a query, how are they assisted? be they treated warmly and with courtesy? 1. Aim of the inquiry The look for aims at finding out if the customer care services are available at College of Medicine Library. 1. 5 specific Research Objectives 1. To find out the customer care services at College of Medicine Library 2. To find out if library staff are always friendly 3. To find out if library staff are eager to assist library users. 4. To find out user satisfaction, 5. To find out ho w library staff treat customers. 6. To find out if queries are solved peacefully and amicably. 1. 6 Research Questions 1 . How do library staffs welcome you in the library i. e are you greeted when you reach the call? . Are they always willing and eager to assist when you need a special help at the counter or in the library in general? 3. How do you rate friendliness of staffs? 4. Which group of library staff is friendly? . Do you have any suggestion on how best the library can improve its customer care services? 1. 7 Significance of the Study The study will assist the library management to make recommendations in coming up with plans on how to improve the customer care services in order to retain its clientele and encourage those that are graduating to continue being members and tide over the library.Scope and Limitations Since the query will only focus on students, the findings will not reflect the real results that are on the ground. It would have been better if the research i nvolved all ossible library members. Lack of enough time and money will also be a limiting factor to this research. 3. 0 METHODOLOGY Research modeology is a process whereby data is collected for the research project. It is simply a set of procedures and methods use to carry out a research. Macmillan and Schumacher (1997n. ) define research methodology as a design whereby a researcher selects data collection instruments and uses analysis procedures to investigate specific research problems. On the other hand, research methodologies according to Powell and Connaway (2004286-287) refer to strategies urrounding the use of multiple methods of data collection as required by distinct types of attempts to achieve higher degree of reliability and validity. This involves gathering the opinions of people on a particular topic. Neuman (2000122) has shared out methodology into categories thus quantitative and qualitative.Qualitative research stresses the experiences and meanings of phenomeno n. While quantitative puts emphasis on the empirical geographic expedition and explanation of phenomenon, where generalization from the precedent to population is the goal (Newman & Benz, 1998 n p). This research will use quantitative and qualitative methods to allow the researcher to get the in-depth information form students on how they are treated in the library. 3. 1 Research Method This basically is the specific method that is used in a research. friendly sciences use various methods in research but the common one is survey method.Powell & Connaway (200461) define research method as specific means of collecting data. One of the research methods used in amicable science is survey. Survey is the research strategy where one collects data from all or part of a population to assess the relative ncidence, distribution and interrelations of naturally occurring variables (Powell 200461). Aina and AJiferuke (200232) observe that a social survey research involves a systematic and co mprehensive collection of information about the opinions, attitudes, feelings, beliefs and behavior of people.Therefore this research will use survey method as it is widely used in social sciences, and library and information science being one of them. It is also flexible because a wide range of data can be collected. 3. 2 Target Population According to Powell (200484) population is the total of all cases that conform to a re-specified measuring rod or set of criteria. He further states that the population is the aggregate of units to which one wishes to generalize the results of a research study. Since COM is still young, its population is not as big as its other sister colleges.It has the population of 585 students in its various programs. So this means that the population of this research will be based on the population of the college which is 585 students. The population of the students is presented in table to a lower place. Table 1 Population size for students COURSE NUMBER OF STUDENTS premedical Students 160 Pharmacy Students 71 live of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS ) Students 298 Medical Laboratory Science 51 Total number of Students Source College of Medicine library users register, May 2010 3. Sampling Methods Sample as delimit by Lo Biondo-Wood and Haber (1998250) is a portion or a subset of research population selected to participate in a study, representing the research population. Stratified simple random will be used to get the participants. In this method the population will be divided into strata. The population of students will be divided according to courses, levels of study, antheral and female and then selected randomly. The method is advantageous because it guarantees fair representation of different segments of population and biasness is minimized. 3. Sample size Chowdhury (200883) defines sample as the sub-group of a population to be studied. Sample is a small amount of something or quantity or part of something to be used for study in a research. But Powell (2004193) defines sample as a selection of units from the total population to be studied. Leedy and Ormrod (2005207) argues that the larger the sample, the smaller the amount of consume error. However, a larger sample does not guarantee good results if it is not well represented. The sample size of the students will be calculated at 20% to have a good representation.Table 2 below illustrates the sample size. Table 2 Sample size 32 Pharmacy students 14 Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) Students 59 Medical Laboratory Technology 10 Total number of students 115 3. 5 Research Instruments According to Aina (2004), data collection instruments are instruments used to collect data. Seaman (199142) defines data collection instruments as devices used to collect data such as questionnaires, tests, structured interview schedules and checklist. Questionnaires will be used to gather data trom participants tor this study.They have been chosen beca use they have an advantage of giving sufficeents an opportunity to respond at their convenient time. Not only that, but are also quick and simple method of reaching a large sample of people. The questionnaires will contain both open and closed terminate questions so as to cater for both qualitative and quantitative techniques. 3. 6 entropy Collection Procedures data is information obtained during the course of investigation or study (Polit Hungler 1999267). The questionnaires will be distributed to students who will be dvised not to write their names.The questionnaires will be self-administered by the researcher. 3. 7 Pre-Testing of Research Instruments To ensure reliability and validity, the questionnaires will be tested before distributing them to respondents. 3. 8 Ethical Consideration To ensure confidentiality, all questions will not borrow names of the respondents. However, numbers will be assigned on each questionnaire for participants to remain anonymous. As Polit and H ungler (1999132-134) dismiss that researchers need to exercise care that the rights of individuals and institutions are safeguarded.Permission will be sought from the College of Medicine Registrar to conduct the study. And also legal and ethical issues regarding this research will be observed. 3. 9 Data Analysis Data analysis is the technique used to interpret, organize and present data that has been collected. Powell (200453) defines data analysis as the process of analyzing the data gathered basically involves coding the responses or placing each item in the appropriate socio-economic class tabulating the data and performing appropriate statistical computation. The data from questionnaires will be checked and processed using.