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Presently, libraries the world over are increasingly reorganizing management and work practices and constantly updating resources and services in order to meet the needs of a wide range of customers. This demonstrates that libraries, like other service providers, are becoming more customer-oriented, customer-driven, and customer-focused. Cozin and Turrini (2008) opined that the focus of the renewal of libraries are the users, evidenced by their opinion about the services provided from the availability of information in various databases to the performance of the professional providing services there.
The urgent need for libraries to give good quality services to customers has led to the automation of some or all library activities. According to Choukhande (2003), “nowhere has the impact of computers been felt greater than in the field of library and information services… libraries are moving further and faster towards total automation and libraries that cannot adjust to these trends will not survive.” With automation, libraries are coming up with different ways to measure customer satisfaction as seen as customer's perception that the service provider's performance meets or exceeds the customer's expectations.
Customer satisfaction is also referred to as user satisfaction or client satisfaction. Applegate (1997) defines it as whether users are satisfied or not with a service or resources in a library. Similarly, Salokun (2007) says it is the extent to which a firm fulfils a customer’s desires and expectations. Automation makes the library system, resources and services more attractive and interactive, while being less complex and tedious thereby helping libraries to meet the users’ expectations. Libraries, the world over serve various customers with varying needs. A successful library will therefore be seen as one that delivers goods and services that consistently satisfy the needs of its users, clients or customers. Thus, the onus lies on the staff of a library to recognize customers' needs and rise to the occasion to satisfy these needs.
Various libraries periodically conduct customer satisfaction surveys to learn how to improve library services and products and keep customers satisfied. These libraries include Iowa State University Library (Public Services & Collections Division,), Victoria University Library (Parker, Maquignaz & Miller, 2001), Leeds University Library (2012), The Administrative Services Team (AST) of the College Center for Library Automation (CCLA) (Jewell, 2009), Association of Research Libraries (ARL, 2010), Loughborough University Library (Walton & Leahy, 2012) and Auckland University of Technology Library (AUT, 2006). A few libraries in Nigeria have also carried out customer satisfaction surveys, though not periodically, to determine the extent to which users are satisfied with products and service delivery (Ugah, 2007; Adeniran, 2011; Ezeala & Yusuff, 2011; Iwhiwhu, & Okorodudu, 2012; Uganneya, Ape & Ugbagir, 2012; Uganneya, Rematu, Abah & Ape, 2013; Onuoha, Omokoje, & Bamidele, 2013; Onuoha, Ikonne & Madukoma, 2013; Ijiekhuamhen, Patrick, & Omosekejimi, 2015; Adekunjo, Adepoju, & Adeola, 2015; Ekere, Omekwu, & Nwoha, 2016; Tiemo & Ateboh, 2016).