UW Libraries Survey Analysis

Services and Materials Availability

Faculty and students who visit the library were generally able to find what they needed (staff, place to work, material, an "open" library). However, there were some differences among groups - undergraduates were less likely to find helpful staff or the material they needed. The difference in staff availability is also reflected in staff satisfaction levels where 87% of faculty were very satisfied with library staff while only 67.6% of undergraduates were. The chart below shows the proportion of those responding to the question who marked 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (always).

	Faculty	Grad	Undergrads
Helpful staff	86.1%	84.2%	71.7%
Place to work	71.1%	74.8%	74.3%
Library computers	58.4%	64.8%	56.9%
Material needed	71.7%	73.9%	58.6%
Open when needed	72.1%	65.6%	68.8%

Users were then asked what they did if material was missing:

	Faculty	Grad	Undergrads
Place search	51.4%	35.2%	19.8%
Place hold	62.3%	52.9%	34.3%
Use other item	58.1%	74.8%	83.3%
Use ILL or doc del.	29.1%	22.2%	10.1%

Collections

Although priorities and comments focused on services, print materials remain important. When asked what categories of library materials would be most useful to them during the next two years (on a 1-5 scale with 5 being the most important), 80% of graduate students and faculty marked print journals as a "5." All academic areas viewed print journals as critical, including 85% of Humanities faculty. The table below shows the categories marked "5" as a percentage of each group:

	Faculty	Grad
Print books	40%	41%
Print journals	81%	80%
Electronic journals	33%	38%
Journal table of contents	27%	26%
Computerized indexes	50%	43%

While journals were ranked consistently high, there was considerable variation in some other areas, especially books. Faculty in such fields as Humanities (90%), Social Science and Fine Arts (85% each), rated books as most important, while only 15% of faculty in the School of Medicine placed books in this category.

12 Mar 96