[Web4lib] Academic Library Website Benchmarks Published

[HAZEL Margaret E]

Very nice.  I don't suppose someone is working on a similar study for
public libraries?  

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Primarydat at aol.com
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 8:30 AM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Web4lib] Academic Library Website Benchmarks Published

 
Primary Research Group has published Academic Library Website Benchmarks
(ISBN #: 1-57440-094-0). The  report presents data from 82 North
American college libraries about their  library website policies and
development plans.  
Some of the report's findings are that:   
    *   More than three quarters of all  respondents plan a major
redesign of 
the library website within the next two  years. Nearly 85% of research
universities (84.6%) planned a website redesign  in this period. A high
percentage of colleges with FTE enrollments below 2,000  (82%) planned
to redesign their website within the next two years, compared to  72.7
to 78.3% of colleges with higher enrollments.  
    *   The library information technology or  web staff accounted for
over 
76% of the total man-hours spent running the  college library websites
for the colleges in the sample. College-wide IT or  web staff performed
an average of just 15.76% of the labor necessary to run  the college
library websites in the sample.
    *   Nearly 42% of survey participants used  a content editing system

provided by the central college web staff.  
    *   Of the libraries that do use a content  management system, just
over 
a quarter expressed satisfaction for the most  part and had no plans for
changing software or management methods in the  future. Another 31.4%
reported that they were not completely satisfied and  might change
content management systems or their  policies.
    *   The mean number of library staff or  personnel who entered
content 
into the college library website in the last  full semester was 13.24.
Community colleges had just 2.5 library employees  entering content,
compared to 5.2 employees at 4-year/MA granting institutions  and 11.1
at PhD-level granting institutions. Research universities reported  the
highest number of library staff entering data, at 51.8, and a maximum of
200.
    *   Nearly half of survey participants  selected JavaScript as their
most 
 commonly used scripting language on the college  website.
    *   For a shade less than two thirds of  the libraries (64.9%) the 
library website budget was part of the library IT  budget, and not
separately broken out; 35.1% considered it part of the college  IT
budget.
    *   More than 8 out of 10 college  libraries use cascading style
sheets 
at least to some  degree.
    *   Approximately one in ten college  libraries have a presence on
the 
social networking site  MySpace.
    *   Over three quarters of the libraries  in the sample (76.8%) do
not 
have a "My Library" type of service for users to  log in to, save
research or favorite places, and bookmark other commonly used  library
resources.
    *   The mean number of files on the  library website was just over
5,400.
    *   Just over a third of the sample  responded that they were
currently 
offering federated search capabilities from  the website, so that a
broad range of library databases could be searched at  once. Three out
of four research universities had federated search  capabilities,
compared to just 53.33% of PhD-level granting institutions,  29.27% of
4-year/MA granting institutions, and just 8.33% of community  colleges.
The mean number of subject-specific search windows offered through
federated searches was 19.72.
The study gives detailed data about  budgets, technology, personnel,
policies, use of consultants, relations with the  college IT department
and many other issues of interest to college library  webmasters or
staff. Data is broken out separately by level of overall  enrollment,
Carnegie Class or type of college, and for colleges with and without
academic library website webmasters, and for public and private
colleges. For a  list of colleges that participated in the report and
further information contact  Primary Research Group at 
_www.primaryresearch.com_ (http://www.primaryresearch.com/)  or call
212-736-2316.   





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