What is Quality Metrics?

Quality Metrics is a Maryland-based, woman-owned firm led by Dr. Martha Kyrillidou, guided by the goal of helping libraries and communities thrive. With decades of experience in survey design, benchmarking, performance measurement, strategic planning, organizational development, budget and fundraising, digital literacy projects and outcomes assessment, Quality Metrics partners with institutions around the world to improve outcomes and enhance organizational impact. Guided by the goal of helping libraries and communities thrive, our mission is to foster organizational commitment to evidence-based decision making, library assessment, research and development.

What is LibQUAL?

LibQUAL is a web-based survey that helps libraries and other organizations assess and improve their services. The survey instrument measures users’ minimum, perceived, and desired levels of service quality across three dimensions: Affect of Service, Information Control, and Library as Place. Participating organizations also have the option of offering LibQUAL Lite, a brief version of the survey that shortens response time while preserving data quality.

For over two decades ARL offered LibQUAL as a resource to assess service quality in libraries. More than 1,340 libraries in 35 countries participated in LibQUAL, including college and university, community college, health sciences, and academic law libraries, creating a growing community of participants and an extensive data set of more than one million completed surveys. We now invite your organization to join the LibQUAL community with Quality Metrics!

Why LibQUAL through QualityMetrics

We guarantee the quality analysis Martha Kyrillidou delivered to the library community since 2000 using the latest survey technology that meets international standards of quality and standardization in survey delivery. Our platform is Alchemer, a leader in compliance and security.  Our knowledge is based on 25 years of continues improvements in survey research and in depth knowledge and understanding of the LibQUAL community norms, survey characteristics, grounded research approaches, and emerging needs. Dr. Kyrillidou developed LibQUAL while working at ARL and was one of the four co-PIs in the original LibQUAL grant to the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education.

How do I help QualityMetrics manage the community data?

Institutions that are participating in the LibQUAL survey over the next five years will be invited to serve in the LibQUAL Advisory Committee.  There is a core group of the LibQUAL Advisory Committee research team that meets monthly and a governance group that will meet two to four times per year as needs emerge. If you want your library director to be involved in the LibQUAL Advisory Committee, please fill in the pre-registration form in the next section.

How will QualityMetrics work with LibQUAL Open?

QualityMetrics has already identified limitations in the publicly available information about LibQUAL Customizations and we shared that with the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) in an effort to create a more useful version of LibQUAL Open. Our goal is to help ARL make a truly useful version of LibQUAL Open.

However, unless QualityMetrics, or some other organization, offers coordination, there will not be opportunities to share and discuss data and trends in the future. Our goal is to continue to convene the community both through the LibQUAL survey offering as well as through broader opportunities to share survey findings from a wider set of options, tools, and approaches in collaboration with venues like the LibPMC conference, the Southeastern Library Assessment Conference, the Library Assessment community (arl-assess), the Qualitative and Quantitative Methods for Libraries (QQML) conference, ALA, ACRL, Core, PLA, LIBER, IFLA, ARL, CARL, and other venues.

How Can My Organization Participate in LibQUAL?

Click Here to Register for an Upcoming LibQUAL Implementation starting with spring 2026!

This draft announcement is under development anticipating the official launch of LibQUAL Open. While waiting for LibQUAL Open, libraries still have the opportunity to launch LibQUAL in 2026 through the registration link here! The form captures interest in launching LibQUAL in 2026 through 2030!