Graham Stone

Understanding Patterns of Library Use Among Undergraduate Students from Different Disciplines

Abstract Objective – To test whether routinely-generated library usage data could be linked with information about students to understand patterns of library use among students from different disciplines at the University of Huddersfield. This information is important for librarians seeking to demonstrate the value of the library, and to ensure that they are providing services which meet user needs. The study seeks to join two strands of library user research which until now have been kept rather separate – an interest in disciplinary differences in usage, and a methodology which involves large-scale routinely-generated data. Methods – The study uses anonymized data about individual students derived from two sources: routinely-generated data on various dimensions of physical and electronic library resource usage, and information from the student registry on the course studied by each student. Courses were aggregated at a subject and then disciplinary level. Kruskal-Wallis and Mann Whitney tests were used to identify statistically significant differences between the high-level disciplinary groups, and within each disciplinary group at the subject level. Results – The study identifies a number of statistically significant differences on various dimensions of usage between both high-level disciplinary groupings and lower subject-level groupings. In some cases, differences are not the same as those observed in earlier studies, reflecting distinctive usage patterns and differences in the way that disciplines or subjects are defined and organised. While music students at Huddersfield are heavy library users within the arts subject-level grouping arts students use library resources less than those in social science disciplines, contradicting findings from studies at other institutions, Computing and engineering students were relatively similar, although computing students were more likely to download PDFs, and engineering students were more likely to use the physical library. Conclusion – The technique introduced in this study represents an effective way of understanding distinctive usage patterns at an individual institution. There may be potential to aggregate findings across several institutions to help universities benchmark their own performance and usage; this would require a degree of collaboration and standardisation. This study found that students in certain disciplines at Huddersfield use the library in different ways to students in those same disciplines at other institutions. Further investigation is needed to understand exactly why these differences exist, but some hypotheses are offered.

Library usage and demographic characteristics of undergraduate students in a UK university

Purpose – This paper builds upon existing research into library usage by exploring whether demographic characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity and country of origin have an effect upon undergraduate library usage at the University of Huddersfield.Design/methodology/approach – The study uses demographic and library usage data for a graduating year of full‐time undergraduate students at the University of Huddersfield, and uses statistical tests to explore the significance of the relationship between demographics and usage.Findings – The study finds that there is a statistically significant relationship between demographic characteristics and library usage on some, though not all, dimensions. But in many cases the effect size is small.Research limitations/implications – The study uses data from a single UK university, and the findings may not therefore be generalizable. Furthermore, the study is able to identify statistical relationships but is not able to fully explain why they exist.Practical implic...

Safety in numbers: developing a shared analytics service for academic libraries

Purpose – It is clear that libraries consider the use of data to inform decision making a top priority in the next five years. JISCs considerable work on activity data has highlighted the lack of tools and services for libraries to exploit this data. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of a shared analytics service for UK academic libraries and introduce the JISC Library Analytics and Metrics Project. The project aims to help libraries effectively management collections and services as well as delivering pre-emptive indicators and “actionable insights” to help identify new trends, personalise services and improve efficiencies, economies and effectiveness (student attainment and satisfaction and institutional reputation, for example). The project builds on the Library Impact Data Project at the University of Huddersfield and the work of the Copac Activity Data and Collections Management tools. The paper will deliver a case study of the project, its progress to date, the challenges of suc...

Huddersfield Open Access Publishing

This paper presents the findings of the Huddersfield Open Access Publishing Project, a JISC funded project to develop a low cost, sustainable Open Access OA journal publishing platform using EPrints Institutional Repository software.

Maximizing use of library resources at the University of Huddersfield

Analysis of library usage data has become increasingly important in recent years, but how do we count and account for non-users? This paper will look at how, through the analysis of e-resource usage, book loans and gate entry figures, the University of Huddersfield has identified groups exhibiting low/non-usage behaviour. The results have then been linked to student attainment.

The 21st-century library: a whole new ball game?

Over the last few years the shift in emphasis from print to electronic collections has posed a new series of challenges for libraries. Issues regarding physical logistics are now being replaced by URL management and appropriate copy, licence agreements, linking problems and, first and foremost, the growing challenge of how to make users aware of the virtual cornucopia of e-books, journal articles, text and images. In addition, users expect this information in a onebox interface.With a reduction in many libraries’ staffing, this session asked: how do we cope?

IRUS-UK: making scholarly statistics count in UK repositories

IRUS-UK is a new national standards-based statistics aggregation service for institutional repositories in the UK. The service processes raw usage data from repositories, consolidating those data into COUNTER-compliant statistics by following the rules of the COUNTER Code of Practice – the same code adhered to by the majority of scholarly publishers. This will, for the first time, enable UK repositories to provide consistent, comparable and trustworthy usage data as well as supporting opportunities for benchmarking at a national level. This article provides some context to development, benefits and opportunities offered by the service, an institutional repository perspective and future plans.

OAPEN-UK: An open access business model for scholarly monographs in the humanities and social sciences

This paper presents the initial findings of OAPEN-UK, a UK research project gathering evidence on the social and technological impacts of an open access business model for scholarly monographs in the humanities and social sciences.

Introduction to OAWAL: Open Access Workflows for Academic Librarians

This editorial provides an introduction to OAWAL: Open Access Workflows for Academic Librarians. The intention for this crowdsourcing project is outlined along with the major topics of discussion. In conclusion, the editorial outlines next steps and future plans of the authors for the OAWAL project.

Sustaining the growth of library scholarly publishing in a New University Press

In 2012, the University of Huddersfield Press presented a paper at the 16th International Conference on Electronic Publishing on its new open access journals platform. At the time, the Press was one of the only New University Presses (NUP) in the UK and one of the first to publish open access journals, open access monographs and sound recordings. This article discusses a number of emerging business models for NUPs before developing Hahn’s programme and publication level business plan, which is then related to the sustainability of the Press at Huddersfield. The article will demonstrate how the Press is able to show value to the University in order to secure funding. The paper will conclude with a discussion around the need for collaboration between library-led NUPs. Although this paper concentrates on the experiences of the University of Huddersfield Press, it will be relevant to other emerging or planned NUPs.