YouTube and similar video-sharing sites were used by 77 percent of students, 58 percent of faculty, and 46 percent of staff to view multimedia content—this statistic helps the Libraries consider how the delivery of instructional resources and point-of-use assistance can be enhanced by brief videos. Nearly all students (95 percent) owned a cell phone (as well as 85 percent for faculty and staff) and 78 percent owned an iPod or another MP3 player (as well as 55 percent of faculty and 41 percent of staff), indicating the increasing use of mobile handheld devices. Students used their cell phones for multiple purposes, including calling (88 percent); text messaging (74 percent); taking, sending, and viewing photos (55 percent); receiving bulletins or alerts from automated services (27 percent); playing games (25 percent); viewing videos (18 percent); listening to music (17 percent); accessing the Web (14 percent); and sending e-mail (11 percent). This shows that students and faculty might be very receptive to finding and receiving information through their preferred handheld device if the library can deliver it in a convenient form. Indeed, it may also indicate that if we do not respond to this booming trend, academic users might look elsewhere. Thus a focus on developing interfaces and resources that can be used or are adaptable for use with a handheld device may be highly rewarded if successfully implemented.
For some time, declining library use has gained national press, yet Penn State Libraries’ traffic and use of resources continues to grow. Even book circulation, which has declined slightly over several years, is still relatively high. Despite a high degree of student laptop ownership, computer usage in our libraries as well as in labs across campus is high, with students often having to wait for a computer. One survey finding may help explain this use pattern: The FACAC survey asked faculty for the frequency with which they required students to use the library during a semester, and nearly 70 percent reported at least once (which included 18 percent who responded “constantly throughout the semester” and 21 percent who responded “3 or more times”).
Some faculty data can assist us in understanding faculty preferences. A total of 88 percent had DSL or cable modem connections at home. Most faculty (80 percent) used technology classrooms, 31 percent had connected their personal laptop to the podium when teaching a class, about one-third used YouTube for teaching purposes, 13 percent reported using Google applications such as Google Docs, and 6 percent reported using simulations or educational games in their teaching. Their preferred methods for communicating with students were e-mail (92 percent) and ANGEL (86 percent), while other forms of communication were extremely low: discussion lists (8 percent), instant messaging (4 percent), blogs (3 percent), wikis (2 percent), text messaging (2 percent), and Facebook and MySpace (2 percent). A total of 29 percent rated their skill in teaching with technology as “advanced,” and 48 percent rated their skills as “intermediate.” While only 7 percent taught exclusively online, 57 percent reported that they had taught a hybrid or blended course. Most (91 percent) had used the CAT in the past year, 78 percent report using databases, and 74 percent report using their My Library Account—their online account for items borrowed, renewals, etc. Online reference resources were used by 59 percent and Google Scholar by 56 percent of faculty. The ASK! service had been used by 21 percent of faculty, but 59 percent reported that their most preferred method of receiving help from the Libraries was by e-mail. Most (85 percent) reported that they were somewhat or very likely to receive notification of library materials of interest to them, while 57 percent reported that they were likely or very likely to share ideas with Libraries’ faculty and staff about services, and 49 percent would receive library recommendations from friends. These survey results can assist librarians in their liaison activities with classroom faculty through an enhanced understanding of their preferences and technology use.
Strategies for Partnering at Your Institution
Local surveys, coordinated with several national survey questions and conducted in partnership with other units, have worked well at Penn State, and we believe this strategy can be effective for other libraries as well. We would encourage other academic libraries to extend their assessment data and knowledge about their users by partnering with other units on campus that gather such data. With the national trend in higher education and with the encouragement of accrediting agencies such as the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, assessment is becoming increasingly important and is consequently receiving more attention, thought, and committed resources. Many institutions have an office of planning and assessment with a staff devoted to tracking various institutional measures. At a more granular level, many departments and units have their own positions devoted to assessment. Here are some strategies to apply when attempting to partner on a data gathering project:
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Do your homework: Ferret out the offices and individuals responsible for assessment on your campus and explore what they do and how they do it. They can often be wonderful allies in gathering campuswide information. Our experience with two units, the Office of Student Affairs, Research and Assessment, and Teaching and Learning with Technologies (a unit of ITS), has demonstrated the outstanding success such partnerships can produce.
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Determine what information you really want: Will it be helpful to compare to national data? If so, locate the data and use parallel questions. Set your goals.
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Be proactive: You aren’t likely to get a knock on your door asking you to participate in a survey or assessment project. Make appointments with the appropriate people. Talk about your need for information in the context of what they do. Don’t expect them to do something outside their scope or mission. Emphasize the usefulness of the data for all parties and for overall institutional assessment.
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Plan ahead: Advanced planning and patience is essential. In the case of the Penn State Pulse survey, more than eighteen months was required for planning, gathering input on possible questions, developing the actual questions, and getting in the queue to have the survey administered. Receiving the results and data analysis added several more months. For the FACAC survey, the library was one of many groups wishing to add some questions to the survey, which threatened to become unreasonably long. Through a continued strong partnership with the group and the support of the director, most of the library questions remained in the final survey, emphasizing the importance of establishing and maintaining long-term positive relationships across campus.
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Develop your assessment tool: Work with experts to design clear, unambiguous questions. Avoid library jargon. Read up on developing good survey questions. Listen to the advice of your partners. They are assessment experts.
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Present the results: When finished, invite your partners to present the results to your library faculty and staff. If the survey was not exclusively related to the library, have them present their results as well.
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Improve!: Use the results to improve your performance, implement new services, and inform your strategic directions.
Conclusion
For both of the local surveys, the Penn State Libraries were able to use the assessment expertise of others on campus to create high-quality instruments that were administered broadly to large, random samples of students, and have the statistical analysis completed. This enabled the Libraries to do far more than we could have if attempting the surveys alone. A subsequent survey on the effectiveness of the Libraries’ Facebook application also included similar questions from the FACAC and OCLC studies, continuing the pattern of analyzing local and national comparisons. The more often questions are repeated over time and in different survey tools, the more longitudinal the data becomes, and richer comparison opportunities are created. These powerful comparisons enable the Libraries to readily see not only service strengths and frequently used resources, but how Penn State students differ from students nationally in their use of online library resources. The findings allow the Libraries to plan future online services more effectively, with an eye toward the specific needs of Penn State students and faculty. As a result of these surveys, the Libraries are also more able to respond to emerging trends by comparing our own student data to national surveys. We can be proud that Penn State students report using our most essential library resources, the library catalog and library databases, at a dramatically higher rate than reported by college students nationally. This assures us that, while we may not ever feel we are doing enough in the classroom to reach all of our students, our programming (which is targeted first at novice users and second at the disciplinary level) is having a significant effect on our student body. While we would love to find that 100 percent of our students are using our resources regularly and effectively, comparison with national data helps us measure our success within a broader perspective.
Additional data on our local student and faculty populations is also informing our planning and future directions, helping us to implement positive change that will enhance our users’ experience with the library and use of library resources. As funding gets tighter and new initiatives and continued funding are increasingly tied to data and strategic plans, gathering data and using it for evidence-based library decisions is not only wise but essential. What you discover may help keep your library at the heart of your institution.
Ellysa Stern Cahoy is Assistant Head, Library Learning Services, and Loanne Snavely is Head, Library Learning Services at The Pennsylvania State University.
Correspondence for Reference & User Services Quarterly should be addressed to Editor Diane Zabel, Schreyer Business Library, The Pennsylvania State University, 309 Paterno Library, University Park, PA 16802; e-mail: dxz2@psu.edu.