“Primary Research Group Inc. has published the International Survey of Research University Leadership: Evaluation of the Academic Library, ISBN 978-157440-453-1

The 125-page study presents the findings from a survey of 314 deans,  department chairmen, provosts, registrars, trustees, chancellors, vice presidents, administrative department directors and other upper level administration and management from more than 50 research universities in the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland and Australia.  Data is broken out by title and also by department or work role, such as for fundraising and marketing, technology transfer, student services, educational administration and other
categories.  Data is also broken out by country, for public and private
universities and by other variables such as level of compensation and gender, among others.

We asked these higher education leaders what they thought of the overall performance of their library, of the performance of the library in meeting the needs of their particular departments, and of library performance in a range of areas: cost control, information literacy, collection breadth, supplier of bibliometrics, and other areas.  Those sampled also give their opinion on which items the library should be spending more, or less, or about the same, with specific data on books, eBooks, journals, workstations and other content, practices and items.

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

•       Younger administrators were more pro-library than older administrators; nearly 69% of those aged 31-39 awarded an “A” grade to their library while only 47.25% of administrators 60 or older did the same.

•       The best paid administrators, those earning more than US $250,000 per year, were also less enthusiastic than others at lower pay grades about increasing the library budget: only 20.83% of them wanted to increase library spending.

•       Support for increased spending on library workstations was strongest from those in positions in university business and finance, where 41.18% wanted to spend more and 5.88%, much more, and in student services, where 47.06% wanted to spend more, and 2.94% much more.

•       Administrators in North America were particularly disillusioned about their library’s performance in information literacy and positive performance assessment fell off considerably from the highest to the lowest ranked universities.

For further information view our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.”