Introduction

San Sebastian University (USS) has implemented several initiatives to enhance student learning. The investment in bibliography and data bases in the year 2013 came to US$ 638.000, bringing the collection up to more than 144.000 books, of which 56% are basic bibliographies for course subjects.

These improvements, however, have not resulted in commensurate progress in student competency in the use of lbrary resources. In this context and in recognition that efficient and effective use of the resources available in the library is as an essential element of teaching and learning processes, the Quality Assurance Vice Chancellorship (VRAC), in conjunction with the Academic Vice Chancellorship (VRA), has implemented a two-year pilot project to increase students' use of library resources and their satisfaction with said resources.

There is not enough evidence about the effects of efficient management of library resources on teaching of a particular subject or students' thoughts regarding their satisfaction with the bibliographic resources available to support their studies in such a course. This connection stands at the intersection of quality management in higher education, the use of information technologies, and the sociology of education, administration, and library science.

The processes of teaching and learning are strengthened to the extent that library resources are effectively used in classrooms, where course content is matched with the materials actually available. For teachers to fully utilize their materials and match course content to material available, however, they must go to the campus library regularly with an awareness of expected learning experiences. This will facilitate the teaching and learning processes, making them more efficient.

On the basis of enrollment numbers each year, Chilean universities acquire basic textbooks and the university libraries acquire complementary bibliographies. At the USS, there is a permanent and increasing effort to acquire texts used to prepare students for professional careers. Additionally, the educational project of the USS and the learning environment "Vive la Experiencia USS," have been established to enrich the classroom teaching and learning processes with cultural content, while providing students greater autonomy in the search for information, the possibility of learning and applying bibliographic standards, and evaluating the appropriateness of fonts used in academic tasks (^{De la Vega and Fukushi, 2011}). This initiative is termed: "information culture in the classroom."

While one might suppose that the growing existence of texts in the library and aforementioned initiative described would result in greater student satisfaction with the texts available; however, this has not happened. In two consecutive studies of service-quality, rating on a scale from 1 to 7, the availability of texts in the library for courses in Universidad San Sebastián has been rated by students as deficient. In 2010, the score came in at 4.8, and in 2011 it dipped slightly to 4.7 (^{Universidad San Sebastián, 2010}, ²⁰¹¹).

Review of literature

Though most research has focused on the use of library resources by students (^{Simisaye, 2012}), there are several studies showing faculty assistance to the institutional library is often inconstant and insufficient (^{Popoola and Haliso, 2009}; ^{Münster, 2003}).

Other studies have shown a decrease of 35% in printed books over a 10 year period (^{Camacho and Spackman, 2011}), and ^{ebrary (2007)} reports that approximately 50% of respondents prefer to use online resources for research, class preparation and instruction, versus 18% who prefer print materials.

Although ^{Popoola (2008)} says that just a small percentage of social scientists regularly use formal databases as information resources, ^{Münster (2003)} has reported that 79% of the researchers visit the library weekly and 47% use the catalog at the same rate, though there were some differences across the diverse disciplines. For a sample of 987 graduate students, ^{Kayongo and Helm (2010)} indicate that 53.3% visit the library while 65.5% use library resources from home. Of those who visit on a weekly or daily basis, 34.8% come to sign out or return a book.

The numbers of uses seeking assistance could be driven by several causes, including insufficient technical support and access to collections, the presence of modern technology in contemporary libraries, or the huge volume of information, etc. (^{Jiao, Onwuegbuzie and Daley, 1997}). All of this is very important to consider to the extent that there is evidence that effective use of library resources has an effect on the quality of teaching and of learning (^{Popoola and Haliso, 2009}).

For example, ^{Gaona and Villuendas (2011)} report statistically significant correlations between academic performance and attitudes toward reading (ρ=.413, p <.001), and to frequency of strategies used to find information in libraries (ρ=.239, p <0.001).

^{Soria, Fransen and Nakerud (2013)} analyzed use of libraries at the University of Minnesota during the Fall 2011 by first-year undergraduate students and found statistically significant differences in cumulative GPA (cumulative grade point average) between those who used at least one library service compared to students who did not use any.

These data are in line with research by ^{Han, Wong and Webb, (2011)} that found a correlation between the use of libraries and graduation GPA of students graduating between 2007 and 2009 at the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU). This positive correlation was also found by ^{Stone and Ramsden (2013)}, who successfully demonstrated a statistically significant correlation between student achievement and e-resources use and book borrowing statistics. Similar findings are reported by ^{Goodall and Pattern (2011)}. This pattern has also been found in high school students, where libraries visits combined with proper study habits were significantly correlated to achievement in science subjects (^{Aanu and Olatoye, 2011}). The key mechanisms behind these correlations, apparently, are not only cognitive or associated with the development of critical judgment, but they are also motivational (^{Ilogho, 2011}).

The fact that teachers do not adequately stimulate the use of institutional resources can occur for many reasons. For example, many of the faculties are part-time professors, with varying approaches to the use of resources and effective, valid management of bibliographies. Moreover, these approaches are distinct from those exhibited by tenure-track teachers in these areas (^{Washington-Hoagland and Clougherty, 2002}). On the other hand, within universities, there are dissimilar expectations about the proper use of and interaction with libraries, and the fullest use of available resources (^{Stebelman et al. , 1999}).

In this way, faculty could assign certain readings for assessment that are not found in library, simply by providing copies to students. By doing so, they transmit the implicit message to students that the library's collection is not useful for educational purposes in that subject; and students might complete the course and later report dissatisfaction with resources available in the library. This dissatisfaction is not a product of an inconsistency between the course program and the available library resources, but between the professors' readings and those available in library. In light of the research of ^{Lau (2001)} and ^{Pierce (2009)}, who suggests that a basic goal should be to encourage students to include library materials in their learning strategies, this disconnection is potentially very serious.

In sum, an attitudinal change must take place in faculties (^{Dierking and Fox, 2013}; ^{Khan and Pred, 2002}; ^{Kaplan, Cook and Steiger, 2006}); and not only where the connections between course content and the library's resources are widely known. Faculty must also model efficient library use through an ongoing effort to assign readings that are available at the university.

The claraboya design: the first experience of the 2012 pilot

A preliminary version the program aimed at increasing student satisfaction with the available library resources through the implementation of an attitudinal change in the professors regarding assignment of readings was designed and assessed. The central activity of this stage was a seminar attended by 18 faculty members (^{González et al. , 2014}).

In that first year, the overall structure of the seminar and the mechanisms to assess student satisfaction with the resources of the library were designed. Finally, satisfaction levels for seven indicators of and accessibility sample of 175 students of 18 pilot courses were compared to random sample of students participating in the Service-Quality Survey of 2010 and 2011. A greater level of satisfaction in all indicators was found for 2012. Five of these differences were statistically significant against 2010 survey data and as well as versus to 2011 data (^{González et al. , 2014}).

Due to the success of this initial experience, a program with greater coverage was designed for the year 2013. This program was offered to all accredited majors and those in the process of securing accreditation at the USS Campus Concepción.

Findings

Table 2 shows the descriptive scores for the variables under study, namely satisfaction with library service (Service-Quality 2013 samples 1 and 2) and satisfaction with library resources for the selected course (by CPRS).

The averages obtained in the CPRS are superior to the averages for 2013 S1 and 2013 S2 for six of the seven variables analyzed: Text availability in library (2013 S1= 4.81; 2013 S2= 5.06; CPRS= 5.47), Library hours of operation (2013 S1= 5.73; 2013 S2= 5.82; CPRS= 6.2), Laptop loan service (2013 S1= 5.05; 2013 S2= 5.2; CPRS= 5.64), Availability of digital databases of library resources (2013 S1= 5.32; 2013 S2= 5.46; CPRS= 5.75), Search catalog (2013 S1= 5.47; 2013 S2= 5.57; CPRS= 5.74), availability of library study rooms (2013 S1= 4.47; 2013 S2= 4.7; CPRS= 4.39), Comfort of library study rooms (2013 S1= 5.12; 2013 S2= 5.13 CPRS= 5.48).

To ascertain statistical significance of these differences, the Mann-Whitney U test for independent variables was conducted. The Table 3 shows these results:

In the 2013 S1/CPRS comparison, statistically significant differences were found in six of the seven variables studied. These difference all favored CPRS as follows: Text availability in library (p=0.00), Library hours of operation (p=0.00), Laptop loan service (p=0.00), Availability of digital databases of library resources (p=0.00), Search catalog (p=0.001) and Library study room comfort (p=0.007). Availability of library study rooms showed no significant differences (p=0.618).

In the same way (See table above), the 2013 S2/ CPRS comparison produced statistically significant differences favoring the following five CPRS variables: Text availability in library (p=0.000), Library hours of operation (p=0.000), Laptop loan service (p=0.001), Digital library databases availability (p=0.004) and Library study rooms comfort (p=0.008). Search catalog (p=0.054) produced no significant differences, while Availability of library study rooms showed significant differences (p=0.033), but in the opposite direction.

To check the second hypothesis, courses taught by the same teacher in 2012 and 2013 with 20 students or more enrolled in both terms were selected. The averages of the resulting 21 subjects (courses) were compared using the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test. The results are shown in Table 4. To safeguard faculty privacy, acronyms for their names are used.

As shown in Table 4, statistically significant differences in favor of the 2013 intervention were found in 4 of the 21 subjects evaluated, corresponding to 19% overall.

Discussion and conclusion

This paper reports on the research is the middle stage of a pioneer project in Chile for optimizing of the use of library resources for academic purposes. A higher level of satisfaction was found in six of the indicators measured by the CPRS scale. The study found that six of these indicators showed significant differences against 2013 S1 and five (5) indicators against 2013 S2. These results serve to provide substantial support for the validity of the first research hypothesis.

An analysis of this variation reveals that the most important indicator for the purposes of this research, i.e., "text availability," shows statistically significant differences in both comparisons. Since the S1 and S2 samples were selected randomly, these results corroborate the data found in the preliminary approach by the researchers (^{González et al. , 2014}) and they underscore the importance of implementing this program at the national level.

As mentioned before, these results come in addition to the other five and four indicators with significant differences found respectively in the two comparisons. Of these, the increased levels of satisfaction with library hours of operation may indicate a positive feedback: as students visit the library more frequently, they become increasingly familiar with and better adapted to the library schedule.

In the view of the authors of this study, the fact that satisfaction with the search catalog did not improve after intervention is due to the fact that students in the experimental courses were required to use the library by faculty. Moreover, participating faculty often provided catalogue codes needed to find required reading.

The second research hypothesis must be rejected because no effect on academic performance of students enrolled in the selected courses was found against the either the 2012 or 2013 grade average, a finding that is not consistent with the findings reported by ^{Gaona and Villuendas (2011)}, ^{Soria, Fransen and Nakerud (2013)}, ^{Han, Wong and Webb (2011)} and ^{Stone and Ramsden (2013)}.

It is important to highlight, however, that the aforementioned research studied the correlation between the students' academic performance and the use of library resources, but not the impact of an intervention on the course's overall performance in two different years.

This is important, to the extent that the development of skills for the use of existing library resources benefits students over the course of their entire academic life. On the other hand, there are many factors that affect the overall performance of a course, including the number of students enrolled and the individual characteristics of the students.

In fact, of the courses participating in the comparison, five (5) are offered in the first year of the respective majors, and there is evidence in the USS that the overall performance of students admitted in 2013 was lower than those admitted on 2012 (^{Programa CREAR, 2013}).

Finally, it should be pointed out that, in terms of faculty satisfaction and teaching quality, the effectiveness of programs aimed at behavioral changes through attitudinal changes has been sufficiently documented (^{Dierking and Fox, 2013}; ^{Khan and Pred, 2002}; ^{Kaplan, Cook and Steiger, 2006}), but student satisfaction and organizational development has not been documented to nearly the same extent (^{Steintert et al. , 2006}).

An analysis by major or by student within a full-fledged experimental design or an analysis of the effectiveness of the intervention, comparing participating students vs. unexposed students in a given year, are potential areas for further research. In the same vein, the limitations of this research were related to the generalizability of the results and the nature of the research design. The pre-experimental design does not utilize random selection of participants in the Claraboya Seminary or in a random a control group, and therefore cannot asses the second hypothesis or allow the researchers to draw conclusions or assert causal connections between the variables. These issues should be considered limitations of this research and areas for future study.