InsideOCULA

Two reports have recently been released that are of possible interest to OCULA members:

• Last week, OCLC released their report Perceptions of Libraries, 2010: Context and Community - this is the much anticipated sequel to their 2005 report Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources. There are links on the page linked above to the full report and sections of the report as well as a link to order a print copy.
• Two weeks ago, the Report on the 2010 LibQual+ Canada Project: the consortial experience and possible future directions was released. This is a report to the Directors of CARL and the participating libraries.

ACRL has just released its much anticipated research report: Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review!  From the ACRL website, this report is:

a review of the quantitative and qualitative literature, methodologies and best practices currently in place for demonstrating the value of academic libraries, developed for ACRL by Megan Oakleaf of the iSchool at Syracuse University. The primary objective of this comprehensive review is to provide academic librarians with a clearer understanding of what research about the performance of academic libraries already exists, where gaps in this research occur, and to identify the most promising best practices and measures correlated to performance.

A PDF of the report, an executive summary and bibliography are all available for download at the report site!

Ithaka S+R Faculty Surveys provide a regular examination of key strategic issues facing information services organizations in higher education. Conducted every three years, these large-scale surveys of 3,000 + faculty examine changes in faculty attitudes toward the academic library, information resources, and the scholarly communications system as a whole.

The fourth survey, just released this month (in a series of surveys conducted over the past decade) examined faculty attitudes and behaviors on key issues ranging from the library as information gateway and the need for preservation of scholarly material, to faculty engagement with institutional and disciplinary repositories and thoughts about open access.

- access the faculty survey 2009

- more about the surveys