Bound for Disappointment Faculty and Journals at Research Institutions

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Bound for DisappointmentFaculty and Journals at
Research Institutions

• Jim Self
• University of Virginia Library USA
• 7th Northumbria Conference
• Spier, South Africa
• 15 August 2007

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Session outline

• LibQUAL overview
• LQ at the University of Virginia in 2006
• Association of Research Libraries data
• Composite LQ results 2004-06
• Focus on question IC8
• Interviews with UVa faculty
• Conclusions

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The questions for today

• Given the substantial investment in journals, why
  are faculty consistently dissatisfied with their
  librarys journal collections?
• What is the relationship between journal
  collections and overall library satisfaction
  among faculty?
• How should we address the dissatisfaction?

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LibQUAL Overview

• 22 core questions
• 1-9 scale
• Ratings of minimum, desired, perceived
• Locally selected questions
• General satisfaction ratings
• Information literacy questions
• Queries on use of libraries and search tools
• Demographic questions

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LibQUAL Question IC-8

• Print and/or electronic journal collections I
  require for my work

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Question IC-8 and ARL faculty

• Highest desired score
• Highest minimum score
• Most negative adequacy gap

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Drilling into the ARL data

• The relationship between serial expenditures and
  LibQUAL scores for IC-8
• The relationship between IC-8 scores and overall
  satisfaction

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Dollars and Desires

• Serial expenditures at ARL libraries ranged from
  3.6M to 11.4M US in FY05
• The 37 libraries spent 232M for serials
• No relation between serial expenditures and
  faculty desired score
• (r -.14)

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Dollars and Perception

• Do serial expenditures affect the perception
  scores and the adequacy gaps for IC-8?
• Significant correlation of serial expenditures
  and IC-8 adequacy gap, among faculty
• (r .63)

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Journal Ratings and Overall Satisfaction

• Do journal scores relate to overall satisfaction?
  
• Strong correlation of IC-8 adequacy gap and
  overall satisfaction, among ARL faculty.
• (r .81)

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Following up with Journals at UVa

• Who is unhappy?
• Drilling down by college and discipline
• Why are they unhappy?
• Reading the comments
• Conducting targeted interviews

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Examining the survey comments at UVa

• Usually general, not specific or actionable,
  sometimes contradictory
• Budget problems have caused too many
  cancellations.
• We need more journals in my field.
• My chief disappointment is in the cancellation
  of journal subscriptions.

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Follow up interviews regarding journals

• Focus on areas with low scores
• Diverse group of faculty
• Asked for specific needs and wants
• Including names of needed titles
• Quick interviews

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Four questions

• Is the Library meeting your minimum level
  regarding journal collections?
• If not, what can we do?
• Is the Library meeting your desired level?
• If not, what can we do?
• Does it matter if journals are print or
  electronic?
• Any other comments about the library?

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82 faculty interviews

• Humanities 20
• Engineering 19
• Architecture 14
• Social Science 10
• Science/Math 8
• Education 7
• Music/Arts 2
• Business 2

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Findings from the faculty interviews

• Nearly everyone says the library is meeting their
  minimum level for journals
• But many respondents say the library is not
  meeting their desired level
• Comments are overwhelmingly positive, but many
  suggestions for improvement are made
• Faculty are sympathetic, and often blame the
  shortfalls on budget problems

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Specific shortfalls

• Access to journals is confusing
• Improve interfaces, increase education
• Need more foreign titles
• Need more backfiles and older content
• Location (storage, branches) is a problem
• Electronic remote access does not work well
• Facilities for browsing need improvement
• Need print instead of online, or vice versa

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In summary

• No single issue producing the low scores
• Searching and access are major problems
• but not the only problems

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How is the Library responding?

• Continuing efforts to improve the search
  interfaces
• Greater effort to inform and instruct faculty and
  grad students
• More receptivity to requests for journals
• Within the library, an increased awareness of the
  importance of journals to faculty

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Other possibilities to consider

• More visibility and marketing of journals?
• More reliance on delivery services for faculty?
• Eliminate the need for searching
• More one on one contact with faculty and graduate
  students?
• Less public talk of journal problems, costs, and
  cancellations?

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The last word

• At North American research institutions
• How faculty feel about the library is greatly
  influenced by how they feel about the journal
  collections.