How recent developments in university libraries affect research
| Pages | 5-16 |
| Published date | 01 December 1996 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01435129610130789 |
| Date | 01 December 1996 |
| Author | Bob Erens |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
Background
The past decade has seen significant changes
in the organization and provision of higher
education in the UK, including increasing
student numbers, the change in status of the
former polytechnics, and limited budgets.
These changes have had wide-ranging effects
on the conduct of teaching and research in
higher education institutions. This paper
looks at one sphere of higher education –
university libraries – and, in particular, at how
recent developments in the provision of
library collections and services have affected
academic research.
At the instigation of the British Library
Research and Development Department, a
national study of university and polytechnic
academics was carried out in 1989 by Social
and Community Planning Research (SCPR).
A postal survey was carried out in order to
examine how well research needs were met by
university and polytechnic libraries, and how
changes in library provision over the past few
years had affected the conduct and quality of
academic research. The survey was repeated
by SCPR in 1995 among a second nationally
representative sample of university academics
in order to look at the effects on research of
recent changes in library provision. This
paper summarizes the main results from the
1995 survey and looks at differences in
response by research discipline; full results of
both studies have been published separately[1].
The 1989 and 1995 surveys
The first study was carried out between
November 1989 and February 1990. A
random sample of over 2,500 university aca-
demics was selected from the 1989 Common-
wealth University Yearbook, and 1,500 poly-
technic academics were selected from staff
lists provided by the institutions themselves.
All universities in the UK were included, as
were 32 of 36 polytechnics[2]. Data were
collected by means of a self-completion ques-
tionnaire mailed to all sampled academics.
Competed questionnaires were returned by
2,452 academics, giving a response rate of 61
per cent. Respondents were categorized into
eight categories: seven “university types” and
“polytechnics”. Response varied by these
eight categories, and the data were weighted
so that the sample was an accurate representa-
tion of the academic population as a whole.
5
Library Management
Volume 17 · Number 8 · 1996 · pp. 5–16
© MCB University Press · ISSN 0143-5124
How recent
developments in
university libraries
affect research
Bob Erens
The author
Bob Erens is a Research Director at Social and Community
Planning Research (SCPR), London, UK.
Abstract
Summarizes the results of a 1995 survey of over 2,000 UK
academics. The main objective was to look at how well
university libraries meet research needs and at the possible
consequences for research of recent library developments.
The results suggest that library collections are perceived by
their users to be deteriorating, gaining access to important
journals is becoming increasingly difficult and, as a result,
satisfaction with libraries is declining. Academics are
relying more now on inter-library loan and on purchasing
their own materials. The growing use of electronic services
has, to some extent, mitigated the potentially detrimental
effects for research of deteriorating collections. Electronic
services permit easier access to a wide range of informa-
tion, a view which has led to increasing satisfaction with
library services over time. However, views vary by universi-
ty and by discipline, and it appears that a significant
minority of academics (perhaps as many as one in four)
believe that recent research has suffered.
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