The report looks closely at the plans of academic library directors to pay for library conference attendance for their personnel. The study gives detailed data on annual spending, expected spending, and on the types of conferences that librarians consider critical. Library directors, deans and other high level officials also relate the ideas and topics on which they would like to see future conferences. The report also gives detailed data on the extent to which decision-making on conferences is centralized. Data is based on a survey of more than 80 top library personnel.
Data in the report is broken out by many different institutional and personal characteristics of the survey participants including size, type, public/private status and tuition level of the institutions, and age and gender of the individuals participating in the survey.
Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:
The majority of respondents (61.45%) reported that decisions are centralized. About a quarter (24.10%) said decisions are largely centralized, whereas only 7.23% said decisions are largely decentralized (7.23% did not respond).
The range of the amount spent in the past year by survey respondents was 0 to $250,000.