International Survey of Research University Faculty, Pandemics Impact on Use of the Academic Library

International Survey of Research University Faculty, Pandemics Impact on Use of the Academic Library

This report presents data and commentary about current and expected use of the library during from 127 faculty at 53 research universities in the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland. Respondents relate how often they visited the library prior to and during the pandemic, and how the pandemic experience will influence their use of the library post pandemic.

The study provides highly detailed data on how use of key library services such as the eBook collection, library online databases, the print materials collection, virtual reference services and inter-library loan – have changed during the pandemic. In addition, the report presents data on how faculty judge library performance in COVID-related areas such as maintaining social distancing, disinfecting library materials, supporting online education, providing information on campus COVID developments, and other issues.

Just a few of this 128-page report’s many findings are that:

Faculty at private institutions were more likely than those at public institutions to plan to visit the library about as often post pandemic and pre-pandemic.
More than 71% of Assistant Professors used their library eBook collection more or much more during the pandemic than prior to it.
Humanities faculty demonstrated the largest increase in database usage behavior during the pandemic.
67% of faculty have not changed their use of inter-library loan services during the pandemic.
Approximately 43% of faculty felt very safe in the library during the pandemic.
Data in the report is broken out by many variables related to the individual survey participants and their institutions including but not limited to: for individuals, age, general academic field and gender of respondent; for institutions, world university ranking, host country, tuition level, public/private status, and work title. In addition, the data is broken out for institutions that are completely or predominantly online and those for which in-person classes play a greater role.