In this study law school faculty comment on their plans for using the law library after the pandemic. The study helps its readers to answer questions such as: how much will faculty use the print collections as much post pandemic as they had pre-pandemic? Which faculty may use such collections less, or the same amount, or even more? Which online services have faculty grown more accustomed to during the pandemic and how will that impact their use of library resources in the future? How easy or difficult was it for faculty to integrate library-origin and other content into their online classes? How often will faculty visit the physical library and will some faculty visit less frequently than in the past? Which pandemic library practices do faculty feel should be carried over in the post pandemic period? How do faculty evaluate the library’s performance during the pandemic?
Just a few of the 70-page report’s many findings are that:
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Law faculty expect that a mean of 71.23% of Pre-COVID physical traffic to the library will re-emerge by September 2021.
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Female faculty were three times more likely than male faculty to say that they would be using the print law library collection less than pre-COVID.
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About 17% of faculty feel that the law school administration should be spending less or much less on the law library post COVID.
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Faculty at top 20 law schools were more likely than those at lower ranked schools to experience difficulty in integrating information into course management systems.
Data in the report is based on responses from 109 law school faculty from 55 law schools in the United States. Data is broken down by work title, gender, and age of the respondent, as well as by ranking, enrollment size and other variables related to the law schools with which respondents are affiliated.