ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Fast Facts

Ann Viles

Student use of library Web sites

→ A Harris Interactive Web survey, commissioned by OCLC in December 2001 to study the Internet information habits of U.S. college students, established baseline data for students’ “usage of campus library websites.” Of the “seven-in-ten students [who] use the campus library website for at least some of their assignments,” the most frequently used information resources on library Web sites were “Fulltext/Electronic journals” (67%) followed by the “Library catalog” (57%), “Databases” (51%), and “Indexes to journal articles” (51%). Only 6 percent of the students surveyed reported any use of ask- a-librarian services.

"OCLC White Paper on the Information Habits of College Students," OCLC Online Computer Library Center, June 2002. http://www2.oclc.org/oclc/pdf/printondemand/informationhabits.pdf. July 5, 2002.

Digitization activities in academic libraries

→ Thirty-four percent of academic libraries responding to a recent national survey by the

Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) reported digitization activities during the past year. Of those, 38 percent were associated with cooperative digitization programs, and 21 percent include digital items in their online catalogs.

Status of Technology and Digitization in the Nation's Museums and Libraries 2002 Report,Institute of Museum and Library Services, May 10, 2002. http://www.imls.gov/Reports/TechReports/intro02.htm. June 29, 2002.

→ Kentuckiana on the Web

The Kentuckiana Digital Library currently provides Web access to approximately 3,700 finding aids, 10,000 photos, 86 oral history transcripts, 120 e-texts, and 50 audio files.

KYVL Fact and Stats: Kentuckiana Digital Library, Kentucky Virtual Library, http://www.kyvl.org/html/about/ stats/kentuckiana.shtml. June 29, 2002.

Five years of PubMed

→ PubMed began offering free Internet access to MEDLINE in June 1997 and received approximately 2 million searches during its first month. Usage has increased to about 1.3 million searches daily, and the 2002 edition of the List of Serials Indexed for Online Users “contains 9,930 serial titles, including 4,498 titles currently indexed for MEDLINE.”

NLM Technical Bulletin, May-June, 2002. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/mj02/mj02_technote.html. July 7, 2002.

→ U.S. periodical prices

The 2002 U.S. Periodical Price Index, sponsored by ALA's Association for Library Collections and Technical Services’ Library Materials Price Index Committee, reports the average price of “a selected sample of 3,919 periodical titles published in the United States .. . excluding the Russian Translations category, rose from $261.56 in 2001 to $282.31 ‚ which represents a 7.9% rate of increase.”

"Surveys Show Periodical, Serials Prices Remaining Steady: 2002 Numbers Reveal Cost Increases Largely Unchanged from Previous Years," American Libraries 33 (May 2002): 75.

→ Math journal prices

The American Mathematical Society’s annual survey shows subscription prices for mathematics journals increased an average of 6 percent from 2000 to 2001.

"Journal Price Survey (1994-2002)," American Mathematical Society, http://www.ams.org/membership/ journal-survey.html. July 5, 2002.

→ Periodical prices in Great Britain

Periodical prices in Great Britain increased an average of 12.56% from 1999 to 2000.

"2001 Library & Information Statistics Tables for the United Kingdom," Library and Information Statistics Unit, Loughborough University, http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/dis/lisu/lis01/pub01.html. July 7, 2002.

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