International Research Library Benchmarks 2017 Edition

This 223-page report presents a range of data and commentary about the operations and plans of 30 corporate, legal, government and academic research libraries. The voluminous study looks at library personnel and spending plans in a broad range of areas including but not limited to: open access and repositories, 3D Printing, RFID, eBooks and print books, databases and journals, specialized technology labs and group study rooms, and more. The study also looks at recent capital budget spending and at planned spending, honing in on specific items such as information technology, energy saving technology, special rooms and instruction centers, and building renovations and repairs. The study also looks at trends in grant support and personnel decisions in a plethora of areas such as: digitization, Information technology, special collections, technical services, budgeting, fundraising, marketing, information literacy, cataloging, data curation, reference, subject specialists, website staff and much more. Some of the survey participants are: Ashland Inc., Carnegie Mellon University, Center for Research Libraries, Fox Rothschild LLP, Haynes and Boone LLP, Monash University Malaysia, NSW Health. QNL, Saint Louis University, The American University in Cairo, The Australian National University Library, The Rockefeller University, University College Dublin, University of Michigan-Dearborn, University of Missouri, University of Western Australia, Marquette, Waters Corporation and Yale. Just a few of the report's many findings are that:Over the past three years, 26.67 percent of libraries sampled had decreased the capital budget, a 43.33 percent plurality had kept it constant, 20 percent had increased it somewhat, and 10 percent said it had increased significantly. Nearly 27% of those sampled had decreased staff over the past three years in ordering and receiving.23.22% said that they would spend less on tablet computers for patrons over the next two years while 6.67% said that they would increase such spending.

Of main findings -- List of tables -- Participants -- 1. Intro -- 2. Staff -- 3. Capital budget -- 4. Materials spending -- 5. Grants -- 6. Collection digitization -- 7. Personnel changes -- 8. Technology investment -- 9. Intra-library employee communications -- 10. Relations with consortiums -- 11. Workstations and information literacy -- 12. Relations with college or institutional subsidiaries in foreign countries -- 13. Open access and digital repositories -- 14. Books and journals.

The study closely compares the policies of 23 research libraries predominantly from the USA, but also from Canada, Germany and the UK. The intensive 230+ page report gives detailed comparisons and data about how these libraries are handling an array of issues and developments, including but not limited to: trends in staffing and use of personnel, operating budget, capital budgets, digitization strategies, use of open access, 3D printing, grants management, technology investment, employee productivity growth, database licensing and much more. Data is broken out separately by library staff size, region of the world and for corporate/legal libraries, university libraries and for other non-profit/government libraries.

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?

Benchmarking Library, Information and Education Services: New Strategic Choices in Challenging Times provides the foundations of ongoing research in the development of collections and services. The book contributes to practical outputs of general benefit to the sector, including customers, clients or stakeholders, offering ideas for how to identify comparative strengths and weaknesses and improve or enhance present practices regardless of how well institutions currently perform. The centerpiece of the book is a description, report and analysis of a major international QB exercise that culminates in a set of good practice statements. The benefits of the QB methodology are applicable to individual institutions. Because of the current global turbulence, individuals, leaders and whole institutions are keen to learn more about what is happening and how they can develop sustainable solutions to both immediate challenges and longer-term scenarios. These include an analysis of third sector organizations, e-libraries, marketing information services, vocational training in higher education, the creative arts, and the role of partnerships in organizational openness. Discusses qualitative benchmarking and it's core tenets Helps readers understand the experiences of others and compare their own experiences to learn and adapt practices Presents tactics readers can use to identify their organization’s professional identity, value and purpose Provides an idea of what the future state of library, education and public services will look like

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.