Primary Research Group Inc. has published the Survey of Academic Library Leadership: Assessment of Fixed Workstations, ISBN 978-1-57440-629-0
In the age of mobile communications what is the fate of the fixed workstation in one of the world’s most information intensive environments – the North American academic library? This new report from Primary Research Group tries to answer this and other questions about how libraries view their fixed workstations. This study helps its readers to answer questions such as: How many fixed workstations are academic libraries maintaining? Has this number increased or decreased in recent years? What about plans for the future?
Which personal computer brands are most favoured by academic librarians and how much control do they have over which they end up using in the library? How satisfied are they in general with the overall degree of control that they have over fixed workstation policy? To what extent is policy over these workstations shared with college or university IT departments or other units of college administration? What have been recent and planned changes in the applications offered through the library’s workstations?
How many workstations are maintained for exclusive use of library staff? For library patrons? How many new purchases are for “active” workstations that allow users to sit or stand while working? How happy is library management with specialized library technology rooms or centers that house multiple special purpose workstations?
Just a few of this 59-page report’s many findings are that:
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Only a shade more than 20% of librarians surveyed said that they had predominant or total control of fixed workstation purchasing in their libraries.
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College libraries at very small institutions with fewer than 1,100 student averaged 15.73 fixed workstations in their libraries.
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Older library directors were significantly more likely than younger ones to purchase additional fixed workstations for the library.
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Female library directors were much more satisfied than male directors with the quality of end user support offered by IT departments to the library’s workstation users.
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18.87% of those sampled were “highly satisfied” with their library’s special purpose computer technology rooms or centers.
Data in the report is broken out by size and type of institution, by tuition level, for public and private institutions and by other useful variables. A PDF edition of this report is currently available for $114.00 directly from Primary Research Group; a print edition will be available for shipment on March 25th and can be ordered now. Site licenses are also available.
For a table of contents, list of participating institutions, the questionnaire and an excerpt – view the product page for this report at: https://www.primaryresearch.com/AddCart.aspx?ReportID=603
Orders can also be emailed to: orders@primaryresearch.com or faxed to 212-412-9097. Reach us by phone at 212-736-2316 or order on our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.