The Survey Of Academic Libraries

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.

The study looks closely at how academic libraries present themselves in the course management system, and the role that they play in developing it and training faculty and students to use it. The report gives detailed data on library staff time devoted to the course management system, the role the library plays in information literacy regarding the course management system, the degree to which libraries offer courses through the CMS, and the degree to which library resources such as course reserves, LibGuides and other subject and course guides, inter-library loan requests, and other library services are integrated into the CMS. Data is broken out by size and type of academic library and for different CMS systems.

This 230+ page study is based on data from 80 academic libraries predominantly in the United States and Canada and gives a detailed picture of how libraries are responding to the challenging changes in the environment for academic library cataloging. Among the many issues covered are: new resource description cataloging rules, perceptions of the future of cataloging and the prestige of the profession, productivity enhancement measures, use of outsourcing for many different kinds of materials, views on the preparedness of library science grads in various facets of cataloging. The report also covers developments in personnel, salaries, use of technology and more. Questionnaire development assistance for this report was provided by Michael A. Cerbo. Mr. Cerbo is the Bibliographic Access and Resource Management Librarian at the University of Rhode Island.

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 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.

Prepared for the Association of College and Research Libraries Ad Hoc Committee on Performance Measures.

The Survey of Academic & Research Library Journal Purchasing Practices presents data about the journals acquisitions and management practices of an international sample of academic and research libraries. The study reports on a broad range of issues, including: spending trends, use of print vs. electronic access, purchases in ¿bundles¿, purchases through consortia, the role of subscription agents, use and plans for use of open access, attitudes towards the pricing practices of a range of major journal publishers, sources of funding for journal purchases and relations with academic and administrative departments of library parent organizations, and the practical management of the journal acquisition process, among other issues.