Digital Scholarship Survey

2014: Key findings

Aquiles Alencar-Brayner

www.bl.uk 2

Aims

• Our Digital Scholarship team has

conducted an online survey (June 2014)

aimed to collect data from BL users

around awareness and adoption of digital

tools and content in their research

practice. A total of 1,649 participants took

part in the survey helping us to have a

clear insight into current digital research

trends and determine which BL digital

content, tools and services need to be

prioritised and made more accessible

across collections in response to the

needs and expectations of our users.

• A similar survey was conducted in 2011

and the results have been compared with

the recent one to check how users

access and rate our digital services and

activities.

www.bl.uk 3

Survey demographics

• Respondents from the academic sector were

the largest group (52%). Postgraduate students

were the highest specific in this category

(31.6%).

• Nearly three quarters of the sample (70.6%)

were Registered Readers. 71% of the

respondents have visited St Pancras building at

least once between Jan – June 2014.

• The majority of respondents come from Arts

and Humanities (58%) background, followed by

Social Sciences (21.5%) and STM (13.1%).

• Survey had a total of 1,649 participants (39.5%

male and 56.7% female)

• Geographic distribution: 42.4% London; 34.5%

other parts in the UK, 8.9% USA and Canada;

8% continental Europe and 6.2% are based in

other parts of the world.

31.6%

16.5%14.0%

12.5%

9.3%

8.0%

3.8%Postgraduatestudent (519)

Teacher/lecturer(271)

Personalresearcher (230)

Professionalresearcher (205)

Other (152)

Informationprofessional (132)

Undergraduatestudent (62)

Participants by

research categories

www.bl.uk 4

How users rate us

• 91.8% would recommend the Library (70.3%

very likely and 21.5% quite likely) to others.

• The Library plays an important role in digital

research according to 82.3% of users: 53.3%

rate the BL as a very important digital

research library and 28.8% rates it as quite

important. This is a significant increase (3x) in

the recognition of the BL as a very important

institution for digital research since the last DS

survey in 2011.

• 63.5% of users are satisfied with BL digital

services (15.9% are very satisfied and 47.6%

are quite satisfied). Remote access to more

BL electronic resources and the option to view

BL digital content on personal devices could

improve these ratings.

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

2014

2011

BL role in digital research

www.bl.uk 5

What users do (I)

• A growing number of readers use portable

electronic devices for their research. Most

popular devices are: laptops (80%) USB sticks

(51%), Smartphones (40%) and Tablets (30%).

• Research is mainly done on textual documents:

printed text and manuscripts are the most

common resources used by the respondents

(almost 90% use printed text and 51.5% use

manuscripts). The Web is the third most

commonly used resource (43%).

• Word processors, document sharing and citation

and reference tools are the most popular digital

resources used for research. Approximately 39%

have used data and/or textual analysis in their

work. Many are aware about programming but

only a small number (15.1%) have used it for

their research. More than half of respondents

(54%) aren’t aware of data wrangling or scripting.

0.0%10.0%20.0%30.0%40.0%50.0%60.0%70.0%80.0%90.0%

2014

2011

Use of portable devicesComparison between 2011-14

www.bl.uk 6

What users do (II)

• Users tend to conduct research on a non-

collaboration context. Only 15.7% of the

respondents said they were doing

research as part of a collaborative project.

• There has been since 2011 an increase in

the use of social media, especially social

networks (+26%), to share research

findings and interests among users.

• Almost half of the respondents (47.1%)

have published their research in print.

Electronic formats are less frequently

mentioned indicating that printed text

remains the most popular format for

publication.

Use of Social Media

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

www.bl.uk 7

What users know (I)

• The vast majority of respondents (93.7%) are aware of

or have used the Explore the BL catalogue. Awareness

and use of other BL catalogues (e.g. SOCAM, SAMI,

ESTC) and BL digital programmes (e.g. UK Web

Archive, EAP, IDP, etc.) are less common with an

average of 30% for catalogues and 15% for digital

programmes.

• 30.2% of participants have their publications stored in a

digital repository. A significant number of participants

(44.4%) doesn’t know if their work is available from an

institutional repositories.

• In general, respondents seem to be aware or quite

aware of copyright issues for digital resources (80.7%).

This hasn’t changed substantially since the last survey.

• In the 2011 DS survey only 17.5% of respondents said

they were aware of or had accessed BL blogs – these

results more than doubled to 37% in the current survey.

30.2%

21.5%

44.4%

Yes (241)

No (172)

Don't know(355)

User awareness of publication in

digital repository

www.bl.uk 8

BL BLOG VISITS 2014

www.bl.uk 9

What users want

• 75% of users said they would like to access the

Library’s digital content remotely and 55% said

they would like to access BL electronic content

from their own devices in the reading rooms.

• 25.4% of respondents are strongly favourable

to the use of digital cameras in BL reading

rooms and have commented on the positive

impact this would have in their work.

• When asked about preference of formats for

digitisation, almost three quarters of

respondents opted for textual sources (30.5%

books; 24.5% manuscripts and 19.1%

newspapers). This reflects the predominant

use of text based materials by our readers.

30.50%

24.50%

19.10%

6.20%

3.80%

3.10%

2.90%

2.30%

1.60%

1.50%

0.10%

Printed Books(500)

Manuscripts (402)

Newspapers (314)

Archives (102)

Prints andDrawings (63)

Photographs (51)

Other (48)

Maps (38)

Sounds (26)

Moving images(25)

Philatelic (1)

Preference of format for digitisation

www.bl.uk 10

What next…

• inform the BL Digital Scholarship strategy on

current digital research trends

• support BL collection development strategies,

especially in the way we collect, disseminate and

give access to our digital resources

• Help the BL to determine which digital content,

tools and services need to be prioritised and made

more accessible across collections in response to

the needs and expectations of our users

• support/advise the Library to implement new

digital services (e.g. Use of personal cameras in

reading rooms - http://bit.ly/1BGPD4i)

• disseminate existing BL digital services and

content amongst users

www.bl.uk 11

More info:

http://bit.ly/1ugnlh9