I am delighted to see Chris Batt's response to this matter.
 
He makes extremely valid points.
 
What had occurred to me was that a visit to a library, and one to a museum is so entirely different. I suspect that on the whole library use and visits are a routine part of users lives, part of their lifestyle etc. Whereas for probably a majority of museum visitors it is both a less frequent  occasion, and probably an event of some sort. e.g "take the kids" in the holidays., "see the Dinosaurs", a short term travelling exhibition,or  while in London or any city., a special project etc, or in the vicinity. so the experience and how you rate it is likely to be different and for many the museum experience is less usual and more novel.
 
I would hope a new approach is now made by NCC to produce fairer and more similar comparisons.
f   

From: lis-pub-libs: UK Public Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Margaret Croucher
Sent: 14 September 2005 12:35
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: FW: NCC report - Playlist for public services

 

Forwarded to the list for information.

 

Margaret Croucher, MLA

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Batt
Sent: 08 September 2005 18:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: PLAYLIST FOR PUBLIC SERVICES

 

Dear Ed Mayo

 

I am writing to you about NCC’s “Playlist for Public Services” and, in particular, the ranking it includes of public services according to public satisfaction. 

 

Whilst welcoming any piece of work which aims to increase our understanding of people’s attitudes to public services and being pleased – at first sight – to see that museums and galleries obtain a “top satisfaction rating”, we here at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council have concerns about the way the ranking has been obtained.  We know you say “the surveys and services vary, so comparison is not straightforward”, but we believe that the surveys are so very different that the compilation you have attempted produces misleading results.

 

First of all, it is likely that very different results will be obtained from surveys that are carried out in individual institutions to those which survey a general population – the former invariably produce higher satisfaction figures.  Even within these two categories, issues of question wording, self-selection, bias, representativeness, response and non-response all mean that the results of each survey need to be assessed on their merits.  It is dangerous and potentially flawed to combine the results from different surveys without first considering whether it is possible, sensible and useful to do so.

 

In the case of museums and libraries, your approach has led to results which we think are particularly misleading.  Delighted as we were to see a 95% satisfaction rate for museums and galleries, we must point out that this figure relates only to the National Museums that are funded by DCMS (and therefore not to, for example, local authority museums) and is based on a visitor survey – as indicated above, visitor surveys (especially those administered by the institutions themselves) usually come up with high figures.  In contrast, the library figure of 67% is based on Best Value community surveys.  A better (but still not particularly meaningful) comparator with the 95% figure for the National Museums would be the 93% of respondents to the CIPFA PLUS survey who think that the library is good or very good.  Interestingly, the Best Value User Satisfaction Surveys 2003/4 that produce the 67% figure for libraries produce a 42% one for museums.

 

Another source of information on relative satisfaction is the People’s Panel surveys conducted by MORI.  In 2002, 85% of the population said they were “Very satisfied” or “Fairly satisfied” with the local authorities’ library services and 79% with museums.

 

In the People’s Panel rankings, libraries come third out of 30 services and museums come fifth.  In the 2003/4 average scores for the 14 Best Value Performance Indicators collected, libraries came fourth and museums, we are sorry to say, came last – admittedly this is for local authority services and you are looking at public services in general, but this is still at huge variance with your rankings.

 

Obviously, this is a very complex issue – we welcome the intention behind it and would be more than happy to work with you now or in the future, exchanging our knowledge of and experience in this area with yours in order to help clarify it.

 

One final point which I am sure others have already made to you – contrary to what you say, the public library service is indeed statutory!

 

With all best wishes

 

Chris

 

Chief Executive

Museums, Libraries and Archives Council

16 Queen Anne's Gate, London SW1H 9AA

Tel: +44 (0) 7273 1476

 


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