The report looks closely at how 29 North American colleges manage their group work spaces and enclosed spaces for individuals, and provides crucial benchmarking data on the number of rooms available, room size, room utilization rates, current and planned technology expenditures, booking, attendance, demographics of use and future plans in these and other areas. The study presents data on occupancy rates, advance notice requirements for booking, maximum number of room occupants, most appreciated room features, investment plans and other data and commentary. Data is broken out for public and private colleges, by enrollment, tuition level, and by college type, i.e., community colleges, 4-year colleges, MA/PHD granting institutions and research universities.
Just a few of the 87-page report’s main findings are that:
· 44.84% of respondents indicated that their library’s group study rooms were built when the library was constructed. A slight smaller share, 37.93%, said their group study rooms were added post-construction of the initial library building. The smallest share, 17.24%, indicated that their library had a mix of original and add-on group study rooms.
· A majority, 75.86%, of respondents said their library does not offer single person enclosed study rooms.
· Faculty and administration accounted for 4.96% of group work space utilization.
· On average, respondents indicated that slightly more than half, 50.66%, of their college’s study rooms were designed to comfortably seat 6 or more individuals. Rooms of this size were more widely available at MA/PHD granting colleges, at libraries built before 1968, and at universities costing more than $34000 per year.