[Web4lib] Results from Survey of Library Relations with the Mega-Internet Sites

[Primarydat at aol.com]

Primary Research Group has published Libraries & the Mega-Internet Sites  ( A 
Survey of how Libraries Use and  Relate to Google, Yahoo,  Wikipedia,  eBAY, 
Amazon,  Facebook, YouTUBE & Other Mega-Internet Sites), ISBN 1-57440-096-7.   
This  report presents data from more than 120 academic, special and public 
libraries  about how they use and relate to the mega-internet sites such as 
Google, Yahoo,  Facebook, MySpace, eBay, Amazon, and others.  
In  many ways the mega-sites have transformed library management, fostering 
change  in information literacy education, library marketing and public 
relations,  cataloging, digitization, collection management and other aspects of  
librarianship.  The report provides  hard data on exactly how libraries are 
dealing with the emerging internet  giants, how they are adopting, negotiating, 
repelling, and embracing them. Just  a few of the reports conclusions are 
reproduced below:
    *   More than 32% of the librarians  responding to the survey considered 
Wikipedia an “unreliable information  source and don’t recommend its use,” 
while another 65.3% considered it  “generally reliable but to use with some 
caution”, and only 2.48% considered  it “as reliable as print encyclopedias”.   
    *   Just over half of the libraries in the  sample reported that their 
library staff and patrons did not really use Google  Scholar much. Three in 10 
participants answered that they used it “reasonably  often,” while just over 
8% reported using it “extensively.” Fully 9% of the  libraries in the sample 
were completely unaware of Google Scholar.  
    *   Awareness and use of Google Scholar  generally increased as library 
budgets increased. No library with a budget  below $500,000 reported using 
Google Scholar extensively. 
    *   Over 28% of participants reported that  they were currently working 
with a search engine organization to digitize and  make available online 
elements of their collection. Larger libraries were far  more likely than smaller 
libraries, in terms of budget size, to be working  with a search engine to 
digitize elements of the collection. More than half of  the libraries in the sample 
with an annual overall budget of greater than $4.5  million are working with 
a search engine to digitize parts of their  collection, while only about 11% 
of libraries with annual budgets of less than  $1.5 million are working with a 
search engine for this  purpose.
    *   Overall, 23.14% of the libraries in  the sample had offered workshops 
that included instruction in use of the Yahoo  search engine. Nearly half of 
all public libraries in the sample had offered  instruction in use of the 
Yahoo search engine.  
    *   11.67% of the libraries in the sample  have ever offered a course to 
their patrons on how to use eBay. More than 41%  of the public libraries in 
the sample have offered such a course, as have  29.63% of libraries with budgets 
of greater than $4.5 million.  
    *   17.36% of the libraries in the sample  had a presence on the social 
networking site Facebook.  Interestingly, 25% of non-U.S.  libraries in the 
sample had Facebook pages, far more than the 16.51% of  U.S. libraries in the 
sample. As might be expected of a  social networking site that got its start 
exclusively focused on academia,  academic libraries were much more likely than 
other types of libraries to have  a Facebook page. 22.67% of the higher 
education libraries in the sample have a  Facebook presence. 
    *   31.1% of the libraries in the sample  had ever purchased an e-book 
from Amazon.  Non-U.S libraries were more likely  than U.S. libraries to 
purchase an e-book from Amazon.  Indeed, more than 45% of the non-U.S.  libraries in 
the sample have purchased an e-book from Amazon, while only  29.63% of the 
U.S. libraries in the sample have made such a  purchase.
    *   Only seven libraries in our sample  have digitized and sold digital 
print on demand copies of out of copyright  works or other works for which they 
have copyright permission, and then have  sold these items through online 
retailers. Of those that have done this,  16.67% sold through Amazon, another 
16.67% did this through Google, and 66.67%  through some other online bookseller. 
  
    *   9.24% of the libraries in the sample  have one or more YouTube 
accounts for the library.  16.67% of the non-U.S. libraries in  the sample have at 
least one YouTube account while only 8.41% of the  U.S. libraries in the sample 
had a YouTube account.  
    *   24% of the libraries in the sample use  Yahoo Groups.  Non-U.S. 
libraries  were far more likely to use Yahoo Groups than the  U.S. libraries in the 
sample; 58.33% of the non-U.S.  libraries in the sample use Yahoo Groups, 
while only 20.2% of  U.S. libraries did so.
    *   20.66% of the libraries in the sample  have staff who use Google Docs 
special productivity tools, including Google  spreadsheets, word processing 
capabilities and other features.  
    *   10.74% of the libraries in the sample  not currently using Google 
Blogger plan to do so in the near future.  A quarter of non-U.S. libraries the  
sample had such plans, as did 9.17% of the  U.S. libraries.   
The 100 page report presents more than  300 tables of data defining the 
relationship between libraries and the  megasites.  For further information  visit 
our website at 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/) 

 (mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org) 



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