ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Frast Facts

Ann Viles

E-journal access

→ A survey of public service librarians completed recently by the ACRL/STS Subject and

Bibliographic Access to Science Materials Committee found that using “database-driven, dynamically generated web lists” to provide access to e-journals received “the highest percentage of ‘preferred’ votes among its users.” More than 68% of the institutions represented in the survey provided access using separate catalog records for e-jounals, but only 19.5% of the respondents from those institutions preferred this method. More than 73% provided access using a single catalog record for both the electronic and print versions of journals, a method preferred by only 36.4% of the respondents from those institutions. Although only 38.3% of the institutions used database-driven applications to provide access, this method was preferred by 47.8% of the respondents from those institutions.

Subject and Bibliographic Access to Science Materials Committee, ACRL Science and Technology Section, "Perceived Successes and Failures of Science and Technology E-Journal Access: A Comparative Study," Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship No. 35 (Summer 2002). http://www.istl.org/02-summer/article1.html. Sept. 29, 2002

→ Information access on campus

Preliminary results of a major survey of college and university students and faculty completed by Outsell, Inc. for die Digital Library Federation show “that graduate students are most likely to pursue information while in physical libraries, undergraduates in their residences, and faculty, by a large margin, in their offices.” Sixty-four percent of all respondents reported “that their current information needs for research are available through their own library’s Web site.”

Daniel Greenstein and Leigh Watson Healy, "Print and Electronic Information: Shedding New Light on Campus Use," EDUCAUSE Review 37 (Sept./Oct. 2002): 16-17

→ Digital library programs

According to a January 2001 survey completed by 21 academic libraries for a recently published study by die Digital Library Federation and the Council on Library and Information Resources, “the principal costs for digital libraries, based on average 2000 cost, [were] commercial content (40%), equipment and infrastructure (23%), digital library personnel (18%), and content creation (7%).”

Daniel Greenstein and Suzanne E. Thorin, The Digital Library: A Biography, Washington, DC: Digital Library Federation and Council on Library and Information Resources, Sept. 2002. http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub109/ pub109.pdf. Sept. 29,2002

→ E-book readers

Seventy-three percent of the respondents to an online survey of e-book readers, conducted in spring 2002 by KnowBetter.com and EbookWeb.org, rated themselves as proficient with computers, 93% read e-books for leisure, 41.6% used them for reference, 29% for work, and 29% for education.

"Results of the Spring 2002 Survey of Ebook Readers," KnowBetter.com, Aug. 8,2002. http://www.knowbetter.com/ ebook/surveys/2002spring_results.asp#. Oct. 6,2002

Ann Viles is coordinator of reference and instruction at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, e-mail: vilesea@conrad.appstate.edu