International Survey of Research University Faculty: Use of Academic Library Reference Services

The study presents data from a survey of more than 500 international research university faculty from 50+ universities in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland about their use of their academic library reference services. The study provides detailed data on who uses academic library services and through which means, i.e. in person requests, by email, through digital reference services, instant messaging and chat services, and other means. The study also gives detailed data on who asks about what, giving specific data for categories of reference questions such as questions about using library technology, accessing eBooks, journals, etc. For example, the study gives specific data on who asks for assistance in using the library website, or who asks for assistance in accessing eBooks. The study enables its readers to pinpoint exactly which populations are asking what kinds of questions and through what means. Data is broken out by many criteria such as faculty academic title, faculty gender, national location of the university, faculty academic discipline, university public/private status, university enrollment size, faculty teaching load and other useful criteria. Just a few of the report’s many findings are that: 55.16% of respondents asked a university librarian for assistance in the past year, either in person, online, or by phone or other medium. Faculty in Australia/New Zealand sought assistance more often than their counterparts in other countries; 65.45% of respondents in Australia/New Zealand asked a librarian for assistance in the past year. Women reported using online library reference services an average of 30.08 times in the past year, compared to just 18.48 times for men. Just 5.71% of respondents age 30 or under and 14.02% of those aged 31 to 39 asked a librarian for assistance over the phone in the past year, compared to assistance request rates above the mean of 20.24% for those aged 40 and over. Scholars from the following institutions were surveyed for the report Australian National University, Baylor College of Medicine, Brown University, Carleton University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Curtin University, Drexel University, Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Griffith University, Imperial College London, James Cook University, Massey University, McGill University, Monash University, Penn State University, Queen Mary University of London, Reading University Rice University, Rockefeller University, Rutgers University, Saint Louis University, Swinburne University of Technology, Trinity College Dublin, UConn Health Center, University of California, Davis, University College Dublin, University of Alberta, University of Birmingham, University of California Santa Barbara, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Riverside, University of Chicago, University of Florida, University of Idaho, University of Leeds, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Nottingham, University of Reading, University of Tasmania, University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center, University of Toronto, University of Utah, University of Western Australia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Washington State University and Yale University.