[Web4lib] New Report On Library Efforts to Index and Catalog Cyberspace

[Primarydat at aol.com]

Primary Research  Group has published The Survey of Higher Education 
Faculty:  Evaluation of Library Efforts to Index, Preserve and Catalog Blogs, 
Websites,  Email Archives and other Cyber Resources, ISBN, 1-57440-13X-X.   
The Survey of  Higher Education Faculty: Evaluation of Library Efforts 
Index, Preserve and  Catalog Blogs, Websites, Email Archives and other Cyber  
Resources, (ISBN 1-57440-13X-X  ) presents data on how higher education 
faculty in  the United States and Canada view the usefulness and quality of 
academic library  efforts to further scholarship based on internet sources such as 
websites,  blogs, listervs, social networking sites, online ads and other 
internet  resources.  The report presents  highly detailed data on how 
faculty use blogs, websites, social networking  sites, email archives, listservs, 
webcasts and podcasts, ezines, online ads and  other cyber resources in 
scholarship.  It also highlights how faculty rate the efforts of academic 
libraries to  index, preserve and catalog these resources. In addition, the report 
discusses  other pertinent trends, such as the degree of use of web 
archiving software.  
The report presents the results of a survey of more than 550 higher  
education faculty in the United  States and  Canada.  Data is presented in the 
aggregate and  for 12 criteria including academic field, size of college, type 
of college,  academic title and other factors. 
Just a few of the report’s many finding are that:  
†      More than 53% of  faculty in the sample refer to websites in 
scholarly papers. Research university  faculty were the most likely among faculty 
at all types of institutions to refer  to websites in their scholarly papers –
 62.5% of them do so. 
†      15.34% of faculty  sampled refer to listserv or usenet postings in 
presentations. 31.25% of faculty  in colleges with fewer than 1,000 students 
refer to listserv or usenet postings  in presentations, the highest among 
all types of colleges defined by size range  in the sample. 
†      14.71% of faculty  sampled had ever used a web archive in their 
scholarly work. Faculty in  psychology/counseling, religion and philosophy, and 
English and other language  oriented majors were the most likely to have 
used such sites. 
†      More than 14.5% of  scholars in psychology and counseling have used 
web archiving software, as have  12.5% in biology and medicine. 
†      14% of faculty in the  sample thought that it was important or very 
important to index and catalog  social networking sites.  Scholars  in art 
and the performing arts were the most likely to view these sites as  
important to index and catalog. 
For further information view our website at  www.PrimaryResearch.com.