Primary Research Group has published The Survey of Academic Library Subject Specialists: Biology & Medical Sciences, ISBN 978-1-57440-224-7.

This study is based on data from 55 colleges with programs in medicine and biology, predominantly from medical schools and PhD-level or research universities in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Australia/New Zealand. Participants include Carnegie-Mellon, Harvard University, Rice University, McGill University, Sanofi-Aventis, University of Auckland, University of Manitoba, University of Pittsburgh, and many others. The report looks closely at collection development plans in a broad range of areas including but not limited to: biotechnology, evolutionary biology, histology, marine biology, oncology, pathology, pharmacology, physiology, virology and many other areas. The study also looks at medical and biology subject specialist perceptions of materials price increases, spending on e-books, information literacy requirements in medicine/biology, contributions to the materials budget from academic departments, book and monograph purchases, database preferences and renewal plans, use of university presses, use of institutional digital repositories, trends in budget and staffing, relations with library patrons, monitoring of faculty publications as an aid in collection development decision-making, and other issues in medical/biology librarianship.

Some of the study's many findings are that:

• 19.23 percent of libraries in the sample--23.81 percent of those in the United States but none of those in other countries--have received contributions from other departments of their college or organization to pay for information sources desired by these departments
• 34.62 percent of libraries in the sample, including 42.11 percent of higher education libraries and a third of medical and veterinary school libraries, have an endowment, grant, or other special allocation that falls outside the normal library budget but that supplements library purchases in biology and/or the life sciences
• Libraries in the sample have experienced a 2.5 percent increase in the price of print books in biology over the past year and an 8.75 percent increase in the price of e-books
• Libraries in the sample have increased spending on biology e-books from $6,016 in 2011 to $7,520 in 2012

The study is available in print and PDF formats for $95.00. Site licenses cost $199.00. To view a table of contents, list of participants, and sample data, or to order a copy of the report, please visit our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.