Electronic Information Services User survey of University staff - Results

TOTAL number of responses - 231

At least once a week

Once or twice a month

Less than once a month

Not answered

Academic Staff

Research Staff

Support Staff

Totals

About you

1. Are you
Please select one category

Academic staff	Research staff	Support staff	Other (please specify)
103	16	102	10
Others included PhD Students and people who are both staff and student

Use of electronic resources provided by the Library

2. Please select one option below to indicate your level of use of the library’s electronic resources
(i.e. e-journals, databases, web resources via Library web site)

If your answer was ‘Less than once a month’ or ‘Never’, please answer question 3, then go to the end of the questionnaire and click SUBMIT.
Otherwise go to question 4.

3. Please indicate the reason(s) why you don’t use these resources
Tick any which apply

	No need to	Lack of time	Too difficult	Network problems	Other (specify)
Academic Staff	3	13	4	4	11
Research Staff	3	0	0	0	5
Support Staff	102	8	1	1	12
Other	1	1	1	0	5
Totals	76	22	6	5	27
Specify (for Other) -- responses included.. Unaware of it's existance, how to use it, what is available to use and how it would benefit me. Connect to resources using ATHENS New member of staff Resources difficult to locate in the website Lack of materials available in specific subject areas

Access to electronic journals

4. How do you most often access electronic journals
Please select one

Via Library catalogue	Via Library website	Via aggregator (e.g. Ingenta, Ebsco)	Direct to publisher	Other (please specify)
26	69	11	9	14
(100 not answered)
Specify (for Other) Bookmarks Athens Science Direct, Pubmed ICJS Online Learning Centre Other Library websites

The Subject Directory in the Library web site
(http://www.port.ac.uk/library/subject/)

In the Subject Directory, you can search within resource descriptions or browse through a subject structure. Please tell us how frequently you use each of these and how useful you find them

Search Engine.

5. Frequency of use

1 (Not at all)	2	3	4	5 (Very frequently)
20	31	33	19	24
(104 unanswered)

6. Usefulness

1 (Not at all useful)	2	3	4	5 (Extremely useful)
11	16	36	37	18
(113 unanswered)

Browse structure.

7. Frequency of use

1 (Not at all)	2	3	4	5 (Very frequently)
24	40	28	17	11
(111 unanswered)

8. Usefulness

1 (Not at all useful)	2	3	4	5 (Extremely useful)
14	23	39	22	14
(119 unanswered)

We are considering re-organising the browse area of the Subject Directory.

9. On what basis would you like to see the browse area organised:
Please tick one option

By course	By unit	By faculty & department	By subject (as now)	Other (please specify)
7	3	10	93	5
Other.... Alphabetical by journal/resource name? As now but with more categories and a clear description of what the category relates to
(112 unanswered)

Resource Discovery Network

The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has assembled a collection of materials called the Resource Discovery Network (RDN).
http://www.rdn.ac.uk/

10. How aware are you of the RDN

11. To what extent do you use the RDN

12. (Academic staff) to what extent would you wish your students to use it?

A selection of comments on the RDN:

Many respondants commented on their lack of knowledge of the RDN, and an intention to learn more about it. Also mentioned was that they feel that their students would appreciate and use it.
The quality of subject gateways is extremely variable - some seem very comprehensive, others minimal
Not easy to use
I don't like the fact that some academic's income generating books are listed under 'articles/reports/etc'.
By no means a one-stop solution, even for undergraduate needs

Support staff please go to question 19
Others please proceed straight on to question 13.

E-learning and the VLE

For the most part, e-learning developments at the University of Portsmouth are delivered by the virtual learning environment WebCT

To what extent are you delivering e-learning

13. via webCT

14. by other means (please specify)

Please Specify - a selection of responses:

Own /departmental webpages
email contact with textbook support
Files on L-drive / intranet
Direct web links in reading lists
Videostreaming
Netmeeting
Demonstration of online resources in lectures & seminars

If you have developed e-learning materials:

15. Apart from the generic link to the Library within the template, have you provided links to electronic library resources

	Yes	No	Unanswered
Academic Staff	19	43	41
Research Staff	0	8	8
Support Staff	1	4	97
Other	1	3	6
*Totals*	21	59	152

16. How have you done this?
Tick any which apply

	Academic Staff	Research Staff	Support Staff	Other	Totals
Link to library catalogue page	12	0	1	1	14
Link to reading lists in library catalogue	2	0	0	1	3
Link to individual items in library catalogue	6	0	1	1	8
Link to e-journal sites	16	1	2	1	20
Link to individual e-journal articles	10	0	1	1	12
Link to resource lists in WebCT	5	0	0	0	5
Link to subject area in Library web site	6	0	0	1	7
Link to Subject Librarian’s web page	2	0	0	0	2
Other (please specify)	6	0	0	0	6
Information and Study Skills workbooks link to publishers sites for specific resources link to online resources
Selected comments on links from VLEs to Library resources: Works well with joint planning and development (ICJS) Wanting to develop WebCT and VLE's such as interactive case studies, but currently in development

Electronic books

17. How aware are you of the availability of electronic books in your subject area

1 (Not all aware)	2	3	4	5 (Very aware)
47	39	11	13	7
(114 unanswered)

18. How far would you be in favour an increased proportion of Library expenditure going towards electronic rather than printed books?

1 (Strongly opposed)	2	3	4	5 (Strongly in favour)
16	30	37	17	14
(117 unanswered)

Reading list management software

The Library is considering investing in software which would enable staff to manage their reading lists.

19. How likely would you be to use a reading list management package which offered links to the library catalogue and bookseller sites?

20. How likely would you be to use such a package if it also offered links to the texts of journal articles and book chapters?

Browsing the physical library

21. When you make an actual, as distinct from virtual visit to the Library, how important to you is browsing as a means of finding material of interest?

1 (No importance)	2	3	4	5 (Very important)
11	14	30	33	39
(104 unanswered)

Thank you for completing this questionnaire. Please add any other comments you may wish to make and then click SUBMIT.

As someone who always uses the library resources from a distance, as we are on a satellite site, I would like to see much better access via Athens passwords through to more health and scientific based journals. We still seem to face some difficulties with remote access, despite use of the password.
The Site Map used to be very useful and has now degraded; many journal articles are now available via Business Elite (weak search engine, though) JSTOR etc. Can this be integrated into the list of economics journals, or at least links provided? A deficiency of the subject classification is that some material important to the subject is available in areas one does not know: e.g. for Economics under Business; for both under General; and for Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics in Economics, in other subject areas. I feel also that journal cancellation decisions need information on any online availability to be provided. On the whole, very well done, though in terms of organisation and appearance I dislike the last revision of the site.
functionality of reading lists software and local inputing and speed of uplaoding are cirical factors in usurping curremt ICJS provision of reading lists
I am very supportive of a move towards the electronification of all bibliographic resources, provided that they can be remotely accessed on-line not only from the University intranet but via the Web in general.
using the electronic sources page is counter intuitive. I have watched more than 40 students arrive at this page by clicking links on the left, and not know what to do . http://www.libr.port.ac.uk/ROADS/subject-listing/computing_info_science.html About half of the students found thetop menu and about half needed to be shown. This was done in tutorials so I was there to show them the top menu, but this will not be available to people using the site on their own
The most useful resource for me is Web of Knowledge which I use regularly and which I encourage students to use.
Printed materials will always be needed to supplement and tangibilise learning resources for students doing an offline (in person) course, even online courses require access too
re: question 18. i am fully in favour of replacing costly journal subscriptions with what may be cheaper (?) electronic methods whever possible to increase the library's coverage. however I would not like to see 'books' in electronic form - apart from anything else I'm guessing this would pass on even more cost to students in terms of printing etc.?
Sorry if my contributio looks a bit lame. I run a urology research team: a lot of the stuff we need is a bit way-out for The Library, but we can access it through the hospitals set-up or directly from search facilities like Pubmed. However I am most strongly in favoutr of being able to do this more effectively - for example if the Nature Publishing Group;'s output was available full tect on-line, that would be great. I know they want an exhorbitant fee - but buying in the journals must cost a lot - for a large amount of paper that is redundant as well as a small fraction that gets read.
would like to be able to order ILLs online
I'm suprised there were no questions about increasing e-journals. I would like to see more journals available as e-journals, even if this means dropping some paper subscriptions in order to pay for it. At present very few journals in my discipline are available electronically or as hardcopy, making it difficult to do my research.
Glad you've done this questionnaire. i find the electronic resources a useful complement to the physical ones, but would strongly oppose them being used as a substitute. A lot of awareness comes from browsing, which can only be done physically. Electronic journals, for example, are extremely poor at facilitating this (quite apart from the issue of tying one to a computer terminal).
RE: Organising of resources electronically. I tend to get the students to use Ebsco etc, as the unit that I teach (Educational COmputing covers both Computing and Social Science. I use the personally quite a lot, however, the 'Once a week'/ 'once or twice a month' well, it's more a case of several times a day in some weeks, then not all for 6 weeks or so ...
Electronic resources are becoming increasingly important but we need to protect and update the physical holdings
with regard to electronic only journals,I would very strongly prefer that the library retains hard copies of the journals most heavily used.
In the 5 years I have worked at the university I have made an actual visit to the library on 4 occassions - your services (i.e. copying articles, interlibrary loans) an electronic resources mean that I have not had to visit the library very often. I find this a very effective strategy in terms of use of time and would never visit the library to browse.
a library to me needs books as well as e copies. I feel that e-copies must never rule out hard copies of reading in my view. It is extremely unsound to read on screen only and damages eyes and backs and much much more.