[Web4lib] The Survey of Academic Librarians: Usefulness of Leading Internet Tools & Sites

[Primarydat at aol.com]

Primary Research Group has published The Survey of Academic Librarians:  
Usefulness of Leading Internet Tools & Sites, ISBN 1-57440-145-9.   
This study presents the results of a survey of academic  librarians about 
their use of leading internet tools and sites such as Ebay,  Google, Bing, 
Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, YouTube, Second Life, Amazon, Wikipedia,  Google 
Books, Flickr, Yahoo Groups, Twitter and others. The  report’s results are 
based on a representative survey of 555 full time academic  librarians in the 
United  States and  Canada.  Data is presented in the aggregate and  broken 
out by various characteristics such as gender, age, library work title or  
field, institutional enrollment, Carnegie class, level of education,  USA or  
Canada and other  factors.  
Just a few of the report’s many findings are that: 
†      Librarians  between the ages of 31 – 39 found Facebook the most 
useful Conversely, 65% of  librarians over the age of 60 had little use for  
Facebook. 
†      Librarians in  special collections and archives used Bing the least, 
while librarians working  in circulation and public services were the most 
likely to say that it was  useful to them, 
†      59% of  respondents felt Google Books was more than a little useful; 
only 13% found  Google Books to be of no use.  Librarians working in 
administration and in acquisitions, collection  development, and licensing found 
Google Books to be of the most  use. 
†      Librarians  with either an associate’s degree or a BA/BS degree 
indicated that YouTube was  not particularly useful (64% and 57% respectively) 
while almost half of those  with an MLS and additional degrees felt YouTube 
was  useful. 
†      Librarians  from PHD granting institutions found Twitter to be the 
least useful (76%) while  approximately 40% of staff at community colleges 
felt that Twitter was of  use. 
†      90% of  librarians under the age of 30 found Yahoo Groups not useful 
whereas  approximately 33% of librarians in their 50s felt Yahoo Groups was 
a little  useful to very useful in their work.  
†      Contrary to  stereotype, Men were more likely than women to find 
that Yahoo  Maps was useful in their work. 
†      Women were  less likely than men to find Ebay useful in their work; 
librarians at public  colleges were less likely than those at private 
colleges to find Ebay of  use.   
†      68% of all  respondents indicated that Amazon.com was useful to them 
in their work.  80% of librarians working in  administration found Amazon 
to be of particular use whereas only 53% of their  counterparts in special 
collections and archives found the same.   
†      Librarians  with an associate’s degree were more likely to think 
that the use of Wikipedia  should be strongly discouraged whereas those with a 
doctorate were most likely  to feel it is an acceptable source of background 
information.   
The 103-page report has approximately 230 tables of data as well as  
explanatory commentary.  For further  information view our website at  
www.PrimaryResearch.com.