Primary Research Group has published The Survey of Higher Education Faculty:

Evaluation of Library Efforts to Index, Preserve and Catalog Blogs, Websites, Email Archives and other Cyber Resources, ISBN, 1-57440-13X-X.                    

This report presents data on how higher education faculty in the United States and Canada view the usefulness and quality of academic library efforts to further scholarship based on internet sources such as websites, blogs, listervs, social networking sites, online ads and other internet resources.  The report presents highly detailed data on how faculty use blogs, websites, social networking sites, email archives, listservs, webcasts and podcasts, ezines, online ads and other cyber resources in scholarship.  It also highlights how faculty rate the efforts of academic libraries to index, preserve and catalog these resources. In addition, the report discusses other pertinent trends, such as the degree of use of web archiving software.

The report presents the 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.

Just a few of the report’s many finding are that:

†      More than 53% of faculty in the sample refer to websites in scholarly papers.

Research university faculty were the most likely among faculty at all types of institutions to refer to websites in their scholarly papers – 62.5% of them do so.

†      15.34% of faculty sampled refer to listserv or usenet postings in presentations.

31.25% of faculty in colleges with fewer than 1,000 students refer to listserv or usenet postings in presentations, the highest among all types of colleges defined by size range in the sample.

†      14.71% of faculty sampled had ever used a web archive in their scholarly work.  Faculty in psychology/counseling, religion and philosophy, and English and other language oriented majors were the most likely to have used such sites.

†      More than 14.5% of scholars in psychology and counseling have used web

archiving software, as have 12.5% in biology and medicine.

†      14% of faculty in the sample thought that it was important or very important to

index and catalog social networking sites.  Scholars in art and the performing arts

were the most likely to view these sites as important to index and catalog.

For further information view our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.

The 250+ page study is available from Primary Research Group or from major book distributors; for further information, view our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com or call us at 212-736-2316.  The report is available for $99.00; site licenses are also available.