This survey presents data on how college faculty use special collections for teaching and research. The report presents data on overall use of special collections and on use of specific special collections such as film & video, photography, rare books and historic documents, scientific history and rare specimens; posters, catalogs and other commercial materials; personal archives and estates, music collections, and art and graphics collections.
The report also presents data on faculty satisfaction with special collections, generally, and in specific areas such as ease of use, ease of finding them in library catalogs, ease of finding them online, ease of obtaining reproductions and photocopies, and satisfaction with their hours of access, among other issues. The study also presents precise data on how often faculty visit special collections and how often they recommend their use to students and professional colleagues.
The report is based no 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.
Available December 2009