User satisfaction in a government library: A case study of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Saudi Arabia

The problem of this study was the lack of knowledge about user satisfaction with the library services which are provided at the library of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in Saudi Arabia. The purposes of the study were twofold: (1) to measure, evaluate, and analyze user satisfaction with the library services provided at the MFA Library for the employees; and (2) to develop a model for evaluation of user satisfaction of library services in government libraries in Saudi Arabia.;The data gathering instrument of this study was distributed to 425 employees from the MFA in Saudi Arabia. Usable questionnaires were returned by 280 or 65.88 percent of the participants and were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences which included the chi-square test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Scheffe test, crosstabulation of each variable, frequency distribution. Significance was at the.05 level.;The results of the survey showed that the more education an employee had and the longer the employee had worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the more dissatisfied the employee was with the library's services. Significant differences were also found depending on the rank of the employee, the employee's age, the nationality of the employee, and the country granting the respondent's last educational degree.;Recommendations are proposed for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Library, and a model is presented for the use of other government libraries in Saudi Arabia. Topics for further studies on librarianship for government libraries in Saudi Arabia are also suggested.