International Benchmarks For Academic Library Use Of Bibliometrics

The study presents data from 30 college and university libraries in the USA, the UK, Canada, Germany, Ireland and other countries, about their use of bibliometrics. Participants include: the University of Cambridge, Cornell University, University College Dublin, the Rockefeller University, the University of Seville, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Newcastle, SUNY Buffalo, Technische Universität München and many others. The study helps its readers to answer questions such as: How well used are indicia such as the Web of Science, Scimago or Scopus? How are Google Scholar and JSTOR used in bibliometrics? What has been the impact of google Scholar or of digital repositories? How strong is demand for bibliometrics services? What are the centers of demand? How fast is demand growing? Is funding keeping up with demand? How are bibliometrics services promoted within the college or university? What has been the impact of altmetrics? What are favored altmetrics techniques? What role are bibliometrics playing in tenure decisions? In hiring decisions? How much library staff time is spent on bibliometrics?

This study presents data from 20 predominantly research universities in the USA, continental Europe, the UK, Canada and Australia/New Zealand. Among the survey participants are: Carnegie Mellon, Cambridge University, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya the University at Albany, the University of Melbourne, Florida State University, the University of Alberta and Victoria University of Wellington. The report gives detailed data on the use of various bibliometric and altmetric tools such as Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scimago, Plum Analytics, and many, many others. The 114-page report presents detailed information on staffing, budgets, marketing, sources of demand, technology and other factors in bibliometric and altmetric service development. Just a few of the report's many findings are that: · Institutions cited by survey participants for excellence in bibliometrics or altmetrics were: Georgia State University, Yale University, the University of New South Wales, the National Library of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh, among others.· 50% of the institutions sampled help their researchers to obtain a Thomsen/Reuters Researcher ID.· A 60 percent majority said demand for bibliometric services increased slightly, 10 percent said it increased considerably, and 5 percent said demand fell somewhat. A quarter of the participants said demand for bibliometric services at their institution remained about the same over the past two years. · Academic department heads accounted for a mean of 24.38% of the demand for bibliometric services from the libraries sampled.· Just 5% of those surveyed use Facebook Insights in their altmetrics efforts.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. It is the global voice of the information profession. The series IFLA Publications deals with many of the means through which libraries, information centres, and information professionals worldwide can formulate their goals, exert their influence as a group, protect their interests, and find solutions to global problems.

The first edition of this handbook appeared in 1996 and dealt with academic libraries. It gained wide acceptance and was translated into five other languages. After ten years the new edition widens the perspective to public libraries and adds indicators for electronic services and cost-effectiveness. The handbook has been considerably enlarged, from 17 to 40 indicators. It gives practical help by showing examples of possible results for each indicator. The handbook is intended as practical instrument for the evaluation of library services. Although it aims specifically at academic and public libraries, most indicators will also apply to all other types of libraries.

Academic Library Website Benchmarks is based on data from more than 80 academic libraries in the USA and Canada. The 125+ page study presents detailed data on the composition of the academic library web staff, relations with the college and library information technology departments, use of consultants and freelancers, budgets, future plans, website marketing methods, website revision plans, usage statistics, use of software, development of federated search and online forms and much more. Data is broken out by enrollment size, public and private status, Carnegie Class, as well as for libraries with or without their own web staff.