Primary Research Group has published The Survey of Academic Librarians: Usefulness of Leading Internet Tools & Sites, ISBN 1-57440-145-9. 

This study presents the results of a survey of academic librarians about their use of leading internet tools and sites such as Ebay, Google, Bing, Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, YouTube, Second Life, Amazon, Wikipedia, Google Books, Flickr, Yahoo Groups, Twitter and others. The report’s results are based on a representative survey of 555 full time academic librarians in the United States and Canada.  Data is presented in the aggregate and broken out by various characteristics such as gender, age, library work title or field, institutional enrollment, Carnegie class, level of education, USA or Canada and other factors.

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

†      Librarians between the ages of 31 – 39 found Facebook the most useful Conversely, 65% of librarians over the age of 60 had little use for Facebook.

†      Librarians in special collections and archives used Bing the least, while librarians working in circulation and public services were the most likely to say that it was useful to them.

†      59% of respondents felt Google Books was more than a little useful; only 13% found Google Books to be of no use.  Librarians working in administration and in acquisitions, collection development, and licensing found Google Books to be of the most use.

†      Librarians with either an associate’s degree or a BA/BS degree indicated that YouTube was not particularly useful (64% and 57% respectively) while almost half of those with an MLS and additional degrees felt YouTube was useful.

†      Librarians from PHD granting institutions found Twitter to be the least useful (76%) while approximately 40% of staff at community colleges felt that Twitter was of use.

†      90% of librarians under the age of 30 found Yahoo Groups not useful whereas approximately 33% of librarians in their 50s felt Yahoo Groups was a little useful to very useful in their work.

†      Contrary to stereotype, Men were more likely than women to find that Yahoo Maps was useful in their work.

†      Women were less likely than men to find Ebay useful in their work; librarians at public colleges were less likely than those at private colleges to find Ebay of use. 

†      Librarians with an associate’s degree were more likely to think that the use of Wikipedia should be strongly discouraged whereas those with a doctorate were most likely to feel it is an acceptable source of background information. 

The 103-page report has approximately 230 tables of data as well as explanatory commentary.  For further information view our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.

The report is available for $75.00 from Primary Research Group or from major book distributors.  A PDF version is currently available ($75.00) and the print version will be available on April 10, 2010. Site licenses are also available.  For further information view our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com or call us at 212-736-2316.