(28 November 2018) In 2018, the majority (six out of eight) of New Zealand academic libraries undertook the Ithaka S+R faculty survey in order to explore and deepen understanding of scholars’ research and teaching practices and needs. The project was initiated by the Council of New Zealand University Librarians (CONZUL) with the Ithaka S+R instrument chosen as this is a well-established tool with a strong track record in evaluating the relationship between scholarly researchers and the use of libraries.
The goal of the NZ survey was to gather this information for each institution for internal consideration and also collate results at national level for comparison against each other and with other countries. As New Zealand is a small country, it made sense to participate together. This allowed us to collect and analyze the data at both the individual and cross-institutional level. Christine Wolff-Eisenberg, who runs Ithaka S+R’s surveys service also came for a site visit, which gave us the opportunity to more deeply interact with the results and consider what we could collaborate further on.
So what did the survey results tell us and were there any surprises? The over-arching theme from the survey results (local and national) is that faculty members have a wide variety of practices, needs and preferences when using our library resources and services. It is reassuring that faculty members in New Zealand do think that their library is important and it is also reassuring that New Zealand’s results reflect results from other countries.
More results here.
