Survey Of Academic Library Use Of Instructional Technology

Survey of academic libraries, chiefly in the United States and Canada, on their use of classroom response systems (clickers); whiteboards, tablets, and other presentation aids; internet technologies such as instant messaging, blogs, wikis, podcasting, photo sharing, online simulations/tutorials, virtual classroom/reality software, virtual reference software, and course management systems; instructional budgets; instructional computer labs; and instructional furniture.

The study looks closely at the growing role of the academic library in lecture capture technologies now widely deployed across higher education to capture, preserve and capitalize on the enormous intellectual property embodied in millions of higher education course sessions. The report looks at how academic libraries are themselves using lecture capture in information literacy and other applications, and also how they are playing a role in providing metadata, archiving, technology and education services to other end users of lecture capture technology in higher education. The study provides detailed data on product selection, cooperation with other departments of the college or university over lecture capture deployment, use of lecture capture in technology centers, and the impact of lecture capture on library information literacy efforts.

The report presents detailed data from 65 academic libraries about their completed, current, or planned library renovation projects. The study includes detailed data on capital spending, library redesign budgets, and spending on computer labs & infocommons, in-library classrooms, artwork, library furniture, carpeting and other flooring, and other elements of academic library renovations or new construction. Details construction preferences for architectural features such as atriums, landscaping, better access to restrooms and building entrances/exits, installation or expansion of library cafes, development of group work areas, better use of natural light, better soundproofing and other design features often sought in new academic library construction or renovation. Also explores the use of various renovation and building features designed to save energy. Other areas covered include student satisfaction with the library redesign, its impact on the use of library services, and governance issues over what campus groups guide and control the redesign. Data is broken out by size and type of library, and by libraries that have experienced recent renovation projects vs those that have not.

The study profiles the interlibrary loan efforts of nine leading American colleges: the University of Texas at Arlington, Tulane University, the University of Minnesota, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Brigham Young University, the University of Tennessee, Colorado State University, Oberlin College and Stony Brook University. The libraries interviewed shared their thoughts on a broad range of topics including but not restricted to: workflow management, productivity measures, departmental organization, budgets and spending trends, service to distance learning students, copyright and licensing issues, measures for special collections, automation and software use, use of institutional repositories and open access publications, shipping costs and procedures, and many other facets of academic interlibrary loan management. The purpose of the report is to define and diffuse best practices by profiling measures taken by nine leading institutions of higher education. Although the report contains much useful quantitative information, especially relating to budgets and employment, the focus in this report is on a journalistic narrative explaining departmental goals, procedures and practices and evaluating results.

Corporate Library Benchmarks, 2009 Edition presents extensive data from 52 corporate and other business-oriented libraries; data is broken out by company size, type of industry and other criteria. The mean number of employees for the organizations in the sample is 16,000; the median, 1700. Some of the many issues covered in the report are: spending on electronic and print forms of books, directories, journals and other information resources; library staffing trends, number of library locations maintained and the allocation of office space to the library, disputes with publishers, allocation of library staff time, level of awareness of database contract terms of peer institutions, reference workload, and the overall level of influence of the library in corporate decision making.