International Survey of Research University Leadership: Evaluation of the Academic Library

Report Highlights

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.