Learning From the University of Michigan Library Survey Results

NISO Member News

UMich discloses what users expect in sibrary svces: "Easier access to electronic resources in the catalog and in articles results, including a clearer path to electronic full text regardless of different vendor interfaces, databases, etc." https://t.co/x62kTJ5ZzC

— Jill ONeill (@jillmwo) January 4, 2024

Some of the Specifics

From the UMich Library blog post:

435 total survey participants. 89% of all participants reported that they used Library Search and 11% reported that they hadn’t used it. Undergraduates, University staff, and Masters' students participant segments had the highest percentages (all under 3%) of participants who said they had not used Library Search. 

The top survey participants by role were:

• (20%) Employed by a Library, Museum, or Archive 
• (19%) PhD, Post Doc, or Fellow
• (16%) Masters students
• (16%) Undergraduate students
• (14%) Faculty member or instructor
• (6%) University staff

90% of survey participants indicated they were affiliated with the Ann Arbor campus, 9% from the Flint campus, and less than 1% from the Dearborn campus. Of the participants affiliated with Ann Arbor, about one third of respondents reported affiliation with LSA, just over 20% were affiliated with a library, archive or museum, and approximately 18% were affiliated with the School of Information.

We asked participants about their frequency of use of Library Search and 64% of respondents said they use Library Search once a week or more. Respondents who said they use Library Search daily were evenly split between those that were employed by a library, museum or archive, and those who were students, faculty or University staff. 

The full text of the blog post (quoted above) may be found here.

A presentation of the survey results from the University of Michigan Library Search Benchmarking survey may be viewed here.