Academic Library Website Benchmarks is based on data from more than 80 academic libraries in the USA and Canada. The 125+ page study presents detailed data on the composition of the academic library web staff, relations with the college and library information technology departments, use of consultants and freelancers, budgets, future plans, website marketing methods, website revision plans, usage statistics, use of software, development of federated search and online forms and much more. Data is broken out by enrollment size, public and private status, Carnegie Class, as well as for libraries with or without their own web staff.

This report looks closely at how academic libraries are re-shaping their websites. The study is based on a survey of 56 academic library web staffs with data broken out by size and type of academic institution and other criteria. The 160 page study gives exhaustive data about academic library preferences in areas such as use of mashups, library social media sites, website staff and budgets, role of the college and library IT staffs, governance of the website, content entry policies, relations with the college IT and web staff, branding issues, college web conformity issues, preferences in content management systems, programming and scripting, division of web staff time among various priorities, use of blogs, listservs, email newsletters, rss feeds and other communication vehicles, use of and plans for federated search, search box presentation strategy, and use of cascading style sheets. The study also covers ease of use issues for library staff focusing on how easy it is to perform certain website-related tasks such as entry of the same content to multiple site locations, ease of inserting and positioning videos, and ease of inserting tabular materials, among other tasks. Other issues covered include but are not limited to: use of freelancers and consultants, sources of advice, use of social bookmarking tools and much more.

This 254 page report presents data from a survey of the cataloging practices of approximately 80 North American academic libraries. In more than 630 tables of data and related commentary from participating librarians and our analysts, the report gives a broad overview of academic library cataloging practices related to outsourcing, selection and deployment of personnel, salaries, the state of continuing education in cataloging, and much more. Survey participants also discuss how they define the catalogers¿ range of responsibilities, how they train their catalogers, how they assess cataloging quality, whether they use cataloging quotas or other measures to spur productivity, what software and other cataloging technology they use and why, and how they make outsourcing decisions and more. Data is broken out by size and type of college and for public and private colleges. Just a few of the reports many findings are presented below: ¿More than 70% of the libraries in the sample say that their catalogers have salary levels that are comparable to those of public service librarians at their institutions. ¿About 27.3% of the survey participants routinely use paraprofessional staff for original cataloging. Public colleges were more than three times more likely than private colleges to use paraprofessionals for original cataloging, and larger colleges were more than twice as likely as smaller ones to do so. ¿41.56% of the libraries in the sample outsource authority control, obtaining new and updated authority records. ¿About 15.6% of the libraries in the sample outsource the cataloging of e-journals; close to 28% of research universities do so. ¿20.78% of libraries in the sample use MarcEdit or other MARC editor to preview records and globally edit to local standards prior to loading. ¿29.7% of the libraries in the sample have technical services areas that track turnaround time from Acquisitions receipt to Cataloging to shelf-ready distribution. ¿About 24.7% of the libraries in the sample use paraprofessional support staff for master bibliographic record enrichment in OCLC. Most of those doing so were public colleges and offered beyond the B.A. degree. ¿Authority control experience was considered a very important criterion for hiring by only 8.11% of survey participants, while a bit more than 35% considered it important. 21.62% considered authority control experience not so important as a hiring criterion.

Assessment is essential to describe a library’s value and to inform decision-making. Using the four key assessment components of design, data collection, data analysis, and dissemination, Assessing Academic Library Performance: A Handbook provides strategies and case studies for performing four different types of assessments: Service assessments for the library’s outward and inward facing services that either help library users or other library employees to help users. These assessments focus on providing and improving how things are done to better serve others. Resources assessments for the physical and virtual resources that the library has in its holdings or to which it provides access. Resources are the reason libraries exist as they help patrons in instructional and research pursuits. Space assessments for physical and online library spaces. These assessments help ensure that spaces meet user needs. Personnel relationship assessments look at how library employees interact with each other. as library professionals. While not for evaluation or advancement purposes, these types of assessments provide information on what library employees can do to improve their relationships with one another. Each section has information on conducting each aspect of libraries followed by three examples to illustrate how assessment is used to support descriptions of library value and to help library employees make decisions that are critical to library improvement.

Survey of academic libraries, chiefly in the United States and Canada, on their use of classroom response systems (clickers); whiteboards, tablets, and other presentation aids; internet technologies such as instant messaging, blogs, wikis, podcasting, photo sharing, online simulations/tutorials, virtual classroom/reality software, virtual reference software, and course management systems; instructional budgets; instructional computer labs; and instructional furniture.

The Survey of Academic & Research Library Journal Purchasing Practices presents data about the journals acquisitions and management practices of an international sample of academic and research libraries. The study reports on a broad range of issues, including: spending trends, use of print vs. electronic access, purchases in ¿bundles¿, purchases through consortia, the role of subscription agents, use and plans for use of open access, attitudes towards the pricing practices of a range of major journal publishers, sources of funding for journal purchases and relations with academic and administrative departments of library parent organizations, and the practical management of the journal acquisition process, among other issues.