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DataBank: Map Research to Collections

Perceptions mapped to the Reality of Collections

The opinion of patrons is a vital element of collection assessment. Are the materials perceived to be keeping up to date with the scholarship? Are there subfields poorly covered by the library? Is there frustration over frequent use of ILL? Survey faculty and students: What do they want or want more of?

Although it is common to take a sampling from within the entire university community for surveys related to library services, for surveys related to the collections it is probably better to target a very specific group—for example, a sampling of graduate students and faculty within the department of Theatre. This specificity has several advantages including a higher response rate, due to the fact that these patrons can be made to feel that they have a personal interest in the topic at hand, and the surveyor can personally encourage participation.

An alternative to sending out a survey is to take a very personal approach. This might involve choosing a sample of patrons (¼ of the graduate students and ¼ of the faculty in Communications), making appointments, and informally interviewing each with a structured (but flexible) questionnaire. The chances of a satisfactory response rate in this approach are much greater than attempting to entice these patrons into a focus group session.

If survey-fatigue is not an issue, a short, free online survey can be designed and executed through the use of Survey Monkey. Questions should include reference to all format types—electronic resources, microforms, print, etc., while avoiding too much library-speak. To maximize the information gathered, be sure to leave room for open-ended responses and comments.

Finally, perceptions can be checked against the reality of the collection. For example, does an analysis of the collection support the perception of the Political Science department that the subfield of American politics is over-represented and the International Relations subfield is under-represented in terms of current resources? What percent of the resources that interviewees mentioned as unavailable are in fact available?