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Are They Ready
to Make the Switch? |
Home Tables & Graphs [by Question] Methodology Conclusions & Recommendations Bibliography
- For detailed results from 20 questions, see Tables & Graphs
- Importance of print and electronic books and journals (Questions 1-2,15)
- Support for canceling print journals/reducing the book budget (Questions 3-4)
- Choosing online or print format only (Question 5)
- Methods for finding articles in print journals (Question 6)
- Use of e-journals -- frequency, access points, how used (Questions 7-10)
- Interlibrary Loan and document delivery (Questions 16-19)
Importance of print and electronic books and journals (Questions 1, 2, 15)
Among all respondents, there were high ratings for the importance of electronic journals (79% giving a 4 or 5 rating) and nearly as high ratings for print journals (73%). There was even stronger support for print books (81%), but much less support for electronic books (39%). Respondents clearly preferred print books to electronic books. It is not known if the lack of support for electronic books has more to do with the lack of exposure to e-books as with any problems with the format.
Among faculty, the highest ratings for print journals were from Humanities and Fine Arts faculty; the lowest ratings from Engineering faculty. The response was flipped when faculty rated the importance of electronic journals – the highest ratings from Engineering faculty and the lowest from Humanities and Fine Arts faculty. Overall, faculty in Business, Education, and the Sciences gave relatively high ratings to electronic journals.
Faculty in the Humanities, Fine Arts, and Social Sciences were particularly supportive of print books; these same faculty along with Engineering faculty generally gave lower ratings to electronic books than Education, Business, and Health Science faculty. Overall, a relatively large percentage of faculty gave the lowest possible rating (1) to electronic books.
Support for print journals among graduate students was particularly high among Engineering, Humanities, Sciences, and Social Sciences students. Graduate students were particularly partial to electronic journals (90% giving a 4 or 5 rating). Support for electronic journals was not as strong among Humanities graduate students compared to other subject divisions.
The strongest support for print books among graduate students came from students in Fine Arts, Health Sciences, Humanities, and Social Sciences with less support from Business students. Engineering and Sciences graduate students were generally more supportive of electronic books than other students.
Undergraduate students were more likely to give the highest rating to print and electronic books than other users. Due to the relatively low number of respondents, it is difficult to see trends across subject divisions for undergraduates.
In response to another question related to the books, most respondents gave relatively high ratings (4 or 5) to the importance of maintaining the quality of book collections (69%) -- about 10% lower than gave the same ratings to the general importance of print books and 30% higher than the percentage of respondents who did not support cutting the book budget to fund journals (see next section). While there seems to be strong support for print books overall, it appears that users are not as sure about that support when funding is needed for journal collections. Undergraduates were more likely to give the highest rating of 5 to maintaining the quality of book collections just as a greater percentage of undergraduates gave the highest rating to print and electronic books compared to other users. Staff were the least supportive of maintaining the quality of book collections. Faculty in Fine Arts, Humanities, and University Libraries indicated the strongest support for maintaining the quality of the book collection while a comparatively high percentage of Engineering faculty gave the lowest possible rating to this question. Among graduate and undergraduate students, the relatively low number of respondents made it difficult to see patterns.
Support for canceling print journals to fund electronic access or for reducing the book budget to fund journals (Questions 3, 4)
Just over half of respondents supported canceling print subscriptions to fund e-journals. There was even less support for reducing the book budget to fund journals. There was a fairly significant number of "undecided" votes in both cases. Staff were more inclined to cancel print; the least inclined were undergraduate students. Undergraduates were also less supportive of reducing the book budget.
More faculty supported canceling print journals than either did not support canceling print or were undecided. On the other hand, more faculty either did not support reducing book budgets or were undecided than actually supported reducing budgets. Engineering faculty were the most supportive of canceling print while the least supportive faculty were in the Humanities and Fine Arts. There was a relatively greater percentage of "undecided" votes among faculty in Business, Education, and Sciences. Faculty in Engineering, Health Sciences, and the Library were the most supportive of buying fewer books to fund journals; faculty in Fine Arts and Humanities were the least supportive.
Graduate students in Education were more inclined to cancel print journals; students in the Humanities were the least inclined to do so. There was less support among graduate students for reducing book budgets than for canceling journals. Graduate students in Engineering and the Social Sciences were the least supportive of reducing budgets while there was more support among Business and Education students.
Again, the low number of undergraduate respondents make it difficult to summarize the results. Overall, undergraduates were fairly evenly split on the question of canceling print journals, but more inclined to either not support or to remain "undecided" about cutting book budgets..
Choosing online or print format for journals if only one option available due to limited funding (Question 5)
If funding were limited and only one format option available for journals (i.e. print or online), 70% of all respondents would choose online only. These overall results were similar across the academic groups -- faculty, students, and staff -- regardless of the subject specialty of the respondents.
All of the Engineering faculty opted for online only. Most of the faculty in only two areas -- Fine Arts and Humanities -- opted for print only.
Among graduate students, the strongest support for online only came from students in Business, Education, Engineering, and Fine Arts.
Undergraduate students in Business and the Social Sciences showed strong support for online only; a higher percentage of Fine Arts students indicated a preference for print only.
Methods for finding articles in print journals (Question 6)
The most frequent methods of finding articles among all respondents was the use of citations from online databases and from cited references. The least used method was browsing issues in departmental libraries.
Faculty were more inclined to use cited references while more staff and students (particularly undergraduates) used citations from online databases. Faculty were also more inclined to browse current or back issues and use personal subscriptions (especially Business and Health Science faculty) than staff or students. Fine Arts faculty were less likely to use online databases and Humanities faculty to browse current issues than other faculty.
Among graduate students, a higher percentage of Business students browsed current issues, Engineering students were more likely to use personal subscriptions and less likely to use online databases, and students in Business, Health Sciences, and the Sciences indicated a relatively high use of cited references.
Use of e-journals including frequency, access points, how used (Questions 7, 8, 9, 10)
Nearly 70% of all respondents indicated they had used e-journals. Most e-journal users reported less frequent use, i.e. monthly, no matter what their academic status. Of all the groups, staff members did indicate more frequent, weekly use while faculty had the highest percentage of "daily" users (13%).
Faculty had the lowest percentage of use, but still over 50%. A larger percentage of faculty gave the highest ratings of importance to e-journals than indicated they actually use e-journals. Faculty in Education, Engineering, Health Sciences, Sciences, and the Library were more likely to use e-journals while a much greater percentage of Fine Arts faculty indicated no use. Faculty in Business, Humanities, and Social Sciences were split more evenly between users and non-users. Faculty in the Health Sciences, Sciences and the Library indicated somewhat more frequent use of e-journals than faculty in other areas.
Graduate students were the most frequent users of e-journals. Among graduate students, Fine Arts and Humanities students were less likely to have used e-journals. Business and Engineering graduate students showed slightly more frequent use than students in other disciplines.
Even with the relatively low number of respondents, most undergraduates responded in the affirmative to the use of e-journals. Only Business students indicated use on a weekly basis.
Among all groups except undergraduate students, the most popular means of accessing e-journals were through the online databases and the online catalog. While about one-third of all respondents used the library e-journal Web pages, it was rarely selected as the "most frequent" method of access.
More undergraduates used the library's e-journal Web pages than the online databases. Undergraduates were more likely to use the online catalog than other groups while graduate students had a higher percentage linking from online databases. Graduate students in the Sciences were more likely users of the online databases than the online catalog while the exact opposite was the case for graduate students in the Fine Arts.
Faculty and staff were the heaviest users of personal subscriptions, and staff were much more likely to use personal subscriptions and publisher web sites as the primary access point and less likely to use online databases than other groups. Faculty in the Health Sciences, Education, Sciences, and Engineering were more likely to use personal subscriptions than other faculty. More Library faculty used the e-journal Web sites. Higher percentages of faculty in Education, Health Sciences and the Library used the online databases while Health Sciences and Library faculty indicated greater use of the online catalog.
Just over half of all respondents indicated they accessed e-journals to search for specific articles. In somewhat lesser numbers, respondents searched e-journals by specific subjects or authors, scanned tables of contents, and scanned latest issues. Relatively few respondents read preprints or used alert services.
Faculty in Education, Engineering, Sciences, Social Sciences and University Libraries were more likely to search for specific articles while a higher percentage of Health Sciences faculty did subject and author searches. Engineering faculty were more likely to scan the latest issues and tables of contents than faculty in other divisions.
Graduate students were more likely to search for specific articles than faculty, staff, or undergraduates while both graduate and undergraduate students were more likely to search for specific subjects or authors than faculty or staff. Staff members were more frequent users of preprints or alert services than other groups.
Interlibrary Loan and document delivery (Questions 16, 17, 18, 19)
Most respondents submitted Interlibrary Loan requests only a few times a semester or once in awhile while nearly a quarter of all respondents indicated no use at all. Faculty were much more likely to have used ILL than other groups with Humanities faculty indicating more frequent use and Fine Arts faculty indicating less frequent use than other faculty. Graduate students had the highest percentage of weekly or monthly users with Social Sciences students indicating more "weekly" use and Engineering students more "monthly" use. The highest percentages of graduate students who never used ILL were from Business, Education, Fine Arts, and Humanities. Undergraduate students were the least likely of all groups to have used ILL.
A relatively high percentage of all respondents were satisfied with traditional Interlibrary Loan as the primary delivery method for journal articles, etc. (74%). Faculty and staff indicated significantly more satisfaction with ILL than either graduate or undergraduate students. All of the faculty and staff who responded had used ILL while 17% of graduate students and 53% of undergraduates had never used ILL. The faculty who were most satisfied with ILL were in Education, Fine Arts, Health Sciences, Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Library. Less satisfied faculty were in Business, Engineering, and the Sciences.
Graduate students in the Fine Arts and Sciences were more satisfied with ILL with less satisfaction expressed by Education students. Nearly all of the graduate students in Engineering, Health Sciences, Sciences, and Social Sciences indicated they had used ILL while a relatively high number of students in Business, Education, and the Humanities indicated they never used ILL.
Over 50% of the undergraduate students had never used ILL. Of those that did, a very high percentage of students in the Social Sciences expressed satisfaction.
Most respondents expressed interest in the desktop delivery of journal articles in PDF format although there was a relatively high number of "undecided" responses to this question. Graduate students and faculty were particularly interested in desktop delivery; undergraduate students and staff were less interested with a higher percentage of "undecided" responses from both groups. Among faculty, the strongest interest was expressed by faculty in Engineering, Sciences, and Social Sciences with less interest among Fine Arts and Humanities faculty.