Service quality assessment in the academic library: Use of hybrid fuzzy expert system

Library is one of the most important elements in the scientific development of every country, especially academic libraries which are the centers of research and study for scholars. The assessment of service quality of these libraries can promote their performance and increase users’ satisfaction. In this paper, a hybrid fuzzy expert system is applied to investigate service quality assessment in the academic library. In order to design this system, the opinions of experts in the field of librarianship science are used. In addition, a general survey is carried out to obtain the opinions of students. This system is a combination of four fuzzy expert systems. After system design, it was tested and evaluated. The results indicated that the system with 98.002% accuracy can predict the quality of services provided by libraries and can determine the level of users’ satisfaction. By making use of this system, we can evaluate the performance of academic libraries and identify their weakness and strength points. Moreover, it can improve the efficiency and increase the level of users’ satisfaction.