Fred Rowland (librarian for Classics, Religion and Philosophy) in the RIS department conducted a survey recently on the format preferences for reading scholarly materials. Assessment Librarian Nancy Turner asks him about his project.<\/p>\n
NT: What was your question? <\/b><\/p>\n
FR: I was interested in how the faculty and graduate students in the departments of Classics, Religion and Philosophy were using e-books in their research work. I wanted to \u201ctake the temperature\u201d. Did they have a preference for one format over the other and in what areas? Books? Journal Articles? Recreational reading?<\/p>\n
I first considered conducting one-on-one interviews but decided to first conduct a survey to get \u201cthe lay of the land\u201d. I have access to the email addresses, so I used that and sent a survey using Google Forms to 150 people. I felt I had a pretty good response rate, and got 49 replies right away. I never sent a reminder.<\/p>\n
One of the hardest things was to write the questions. I\u2019d never done a survey before. My interest was in reading habits for scholarly research material \u2013 so it was difficult for me to find a way to word this so that it was clear what I meant. So I asked how much time per week that was spent reading these formats might be interesting. I also asked if I could follow up with them in person. About 22 said yes.<\/p>\n
I felt it was a pretty good \u201camateur\u201d survey \u2013 I felt I got at what I wanted to know.<\/p>\n
In addition to the preference question, I asked what department and status (graduate student or faculty) the responder was \u2013 I also separated out the journal article reading from the book reading.<\/p>\n
NT: Tell us about your results<\/b><\/p>\n
FR: I wasn\u2019t too surprised by the results.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve shared the results of the survey with Brian (Head of Acquisitions). I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll be making any changes in how we purchase materials in my subject areas, but I feel more comfortable with the decisions we\u2019re making. I\u2019ve also shared the survey results with the academic departments.<\/p>\n
NT: Is there anything you\u2019d do differently? <\/b><\/p>\n
FR: As I said, writing the questions was hard and I\u2019d try to better articulate what I want to know before writing the survey questions. But I was curious about how faculty and students were responding to our increasingly electronic collection of books and I wanted to gauge their reaction to this change, particularly as it relates to their research work. I think this kind of activity demonstrates our interest in what they think. It helps me keep a pulse on what\u2019s going on in my departments, and keeps the communication going.<\/p>\n
For more information on Fred\u2019s work, contact him at frowland@temple.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fred Rowland (librarian for Classics, Religion and Philosophy) in the RIS department conducted a survey recently on the format preferences for reading scholarly materials. Assessment Librarian Nancy Turner asks him about his project. NT: What was your question? FR: I … Continue reading