[Web4lib] Corporate library office space declines an estimated 12% in past two years

[Primarydat at aol.com]

Over the past two years, the mean drop in office space available to the  
library has been a bit more than 12%, according to Corporate Library Benchmarks,  
2007 Edition (ISBN 1-57440-084-3), just released by Primary Research Group  
Inc.   Libraries of organizations in all revenue  size ranges decreased total 
space over the past two years, with larger  organizations tending to reduce 
office space more than small organizations.  Most librarians pointed to a  decline 
in use of print resources as the cause.  
Online and other electronic information accounts for more  than 65% of the 
materials budgets of corporate libraries, and more than 80% of  the library 
content expenditures of companies with greater than $5 billion in  annual sales, 
according to the study.   The benchmarking report is based on  data from 48 
major corporate and other business libraries of organizations with  mean revenues 
of approximately $3.6 billion.  Just a few of its findings are  that:   
    *   The median number of patron visitors to the  physical location of the 
library was only 13.5 
    *   The ratio of librarians to other service  personnel was almost 2:1. 
    *   Only one library in the sample outsourced  research functions to 
researchers or librarians based in developing countries  such as India,  Russia or 
 China.   
    *   Overall, more libraries lost FTE positions over  the past two years 
than gained FTE positions.  More than 30% of the libraries in the  sample lost 
full time equivalent positions over the past three years, while  11.63% gained 
positions. 
    *   In 2006, the libraries in the sample estimated  that their budgets 
had increased a mean of 7.38%, and a median of  5%. 
    *   Close to 40% of the libraries in the  sample believed that the 
library accounted for 80% or more of company spending  on electronic information 
typically associated with the library, such as  spending on journals, databases, 
newsletters, e-books and directories.   
    *   62.16% of the libraries in the sample keep  a written log of the 
reference questions received from library patrons.   
    *   Competitor profiling was of dramatic importance  to the librarians in 
the sample.   It was a primary theme more in more than 15% of research 
assignments  for about 53% of organizations in the sample, and it was a primary 
theme in  more than 30% of assignments for more than 29% of survey participants.  
Competitor profiling was particularly important in heavy industry and finance. 
  
    *   The librarians in the sample spent a mean of  3.47 hours per week 
reading blogs or listservs. 
    *   The librarians in the sample traveled more than  35 miles away on 
library business a mean of 5.52  times in the past year, and a median  of three 
times. 
    *   In 2005, the libraries in the sample maintained  a mean of 6.00 
workstations primarily for librarian use, with companies in the  information 
services/informatics sector maintaining the greatest number of  workstations for 
librarians. This figure rose slightly to 6.1 in 2006.   
    *   More than 71% of the libraries that use  subscription agents pay 
their agents in one lump sum, while 28.6% paid them in  increments throughout the 
year. Incremental pay was somewhat more common among  the smaller 
organizations, as it was among companies in industry and  information 
services/informatics. 
The study presents a broad range of data, broken out by  size of parent 
organization, type of industry, and also between organizations  that have decreased 
the physical size of their library in recent years vs those  that have 
maintained or increased it.  The report includes data on salaries, budgets, spending 
for books,  directories, magazines and newspapers, journals, online 
databases, CD-ROM and  other information vehicles.  More info is  available at 
_www.primaryresearch.com_ (http://www.primaryresearch.com) . 

James Moses,  Research Analyst
Primary Research Group Inc.
2753 Broadway, #156
NY, NY  10025
212-736-2316
_www.primaryresearch.com_ (http://www.primaryresearch.com/) 
_primarydat at mindspring.com_ (mailto:primarydat at mindspring.com) 
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