Survey Of Academic Library Use Of Online And Other Survey Tools

This 106-page report looks closely at how academic libraries are using online and other survey tools to improve library productivity and match library capabilities with user needs. The report helps its readers to answer questions such as: which populations do academic libraries survey and how often do they do so? How extensive is the use of online survey tools and which ones are used? To what extent do libraries use fee version and to what extent paid versions? Do they hire market research or polling firms and if so, how often? How do libraries benefit from surveying? Do they publish or otherwise make available survey results? How can survey results be used to influence key stakeholders? How do libraries assess survey results? Do they archive surveys? --

The Survey of Academic Libraries, 2014-15 Edition looks closely at key benchmarks for academic libraries in areas such as spending for books and e-books, deployment and pay rates for student workers, use of tablet computers, cloud computing and other new technologies, database licensing practices, and much more. The study includes detailed data on overall budgets, capital budgets, salaries and materials spending, and much more of interest to academic librarians and their suppliers. Data in this 200+ page report is broken out by size and type of library for easy benchmarking.

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.

This 125+ page report looks closely at how public, academic and special libraries are using open source solutions for email, integrated library systems, word processing and spreadsheets, the library website, server management, and content management and digital preservation software, among other applications. The study looks at which libraries use open source and which use commercial software and why. The study helps librarians and library information technology staff to answer questions such as: what are the most popular open source applications? How much of an IT or software support staff must a library have to succeed with open source alternatives? How much do libraries spend in supporting open source solutions in both funding and staff time? How much does the use of open source software save them? What areas of library operations have been most impacted by open source? How many open source solutions are libraries of different size staffs and different types using? How many have started with an open source solutions in a given area and then abandoned it? How do libraries evaluate their own success or failure with open source? What are the open source solutions they are most anxious to try in the future? Which outside services do they recommend to support open source alternatives? Which information sources about open source do they find most useful?

The first edition of the CLIP Note "User Surveys in College Libraries" in 1995 proved to be a popular publication, as libraries strive to improve their services to their user communities by attempting to discover their needs and expectations. In the past ten years, the use of surveys in libraries has evolved with the development of online tools and services, so it was deemed appropriate to provide a second edition of this publication. Using the CLIP Notes guidelines, the compilers developed a survey based on that found in the 1995 User Surveys in College Libraries to allow for an historical comparison. A first draft of the survey was tested on a sample group, and the survey was edited based on feedback. The compilers used the online tool SurveyMonkey.com to manage the survey and, in May 2006, invited librarians representing 251 libraries to respond, garnering a response rate of 53 per cent.

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 data from a survey of 400+ American college students about how they go about doing research in their college libraries. The 150+ page report gives extensive data on student use of major search engines, wikipedia, library databases, book collections and other library resources. The study also gives detailed information on how their professors advise them to use the library, and how comfortable they feel about their research skills and how helpful librarians have been in helping them in their research. Data is broken out by more than 16 criteria including gender, income level, type and size of college, mean SAT acceptance score of the college, and many other variables. Just a few of the report¡¦s many findings are that: ¿öOnly about 47% of students are sure that they have ever been required to turn in a research paper exceeding 10 double spaced typed pages in length for any of their classes.¿öMore than 86% of students say that they understand the concept of plagiarism ¡§well¡ ̈ or ¡§very well¡ ̈. ¿ö64% of students sampled say that they know how to contact a librarian online.¿ö55.2% of the students in the sample had not asked for help from a librarian within the past year.¿öNearly 29% of students say that Google, Yahoo and other major search engine searches were the most important information source for their last research assignment.¿öMore than 9% of information needed for research papers was sourced from Wikipedia or other wickis.¿öThe higher the grade point average the less information for research papers was obtained from search engines such as Google or Yahoo.The study is available directly from Primary Research Group or from major book distributors. The price is $80.00 for print and PDF versions; site licenses are also available. For further information contact Primary Research Group at 212-736-2316 or visit our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.

The study is based on survey data from 40 academic libraries and looks closely at how they monitor, assess and act to maintain or improve their reputation with key stakeholders such as students, alumni, faculty and college administration. The report gives extensive data on library public relations practices and on surveying and monitoring techniques and looks at public relations expenditures and strategies to improve the library reputation. The study looks at the dimensions of the library patron surveying and opinion monitoring effort and also at how academic libraries monitor the internet to assess the library’s reputation in cyberspace. The report also looks at the use of focus groups and with relations with organizations that rate colleges and libraries.