Key Findings from “The Survey of Academic Libraries, 2010-11

Another heads up from Gary:

Highlights/Key Findings from “The Survey of Academic Libraries, 2010-11 Edition” Now AvailableBy resourceshelf

“The Primary Research Group will be releasing a new report on August 22, 2010. This time it’s, “The Survey of Academic Libraries, 2010-11 Edition.” The full text report is $98. Learn more and order here.

Selected Findings from the Report:

+ For more than 56% of the libraries in the sample, salaries and benefits in real terms declined in the past year.
+ The libraries in the sample reduced spending on content/materials by a mean of 1.75% in the 2009-10 academic year; the median figure was 0.
+ Libraries in the sample spent a mean of $5,801 on books and other intellectual property through Amazon online in the 2009-10 academic year.
+ 12.73% of the libraries sampled said that they had received support within the last year from Federal agencies.
An enormous gap is opening up between the public and private colleges over capital spending. 55.56% of the public colleges say that their capital budgets will decrease over the next three years while only 5.56% of private colleges say the same.
About a quarter of the libraries sampled have increased investment in information resources in business, finance and economics while about half that percentage has decreased such investment. Most have maintained it constant. More than 37% of private colleges have increased investment in this area while only 6.25% have decreased it.

The data in the report is based on a sample of more than 50 academic libraries in the United States and Canada.

The report presents more than 245 pages of data and commentary on a broad range of academic library issues including: spending on books, ebooks, journals, databases and other content vehicles; hiring plans and trends in salaries and benefits; subject specific and overall academic library investment plans in content and trends in the capital budget; data on the use of laptops in the library, and the usefulness of various internet tools, among other issues.

You can also access just a few tables from the complete report here.

THE REPORT WILL BE RELEASED AS A PDF on August 22, 2010

Source: Primary Research Group

Stephen