Decoding faculty needs in research and

teaching

Cornell University Library Assessment and CommunicationZsuzsa Koltay

Gaby Castro Gessner, Linda Miller, Joanne Leary, Vandana Shah

Library could…

…build on existing efforts• Awareness (identity and activities)• Research skills (students and

faculty)• Communication about collections

…build new services to address• Top challenges• Suggestions

Art by Jan Vorman

Awareness – identity and activities

Did pretty well on:Print AND onlineService-orientation recognizedStaff expertise

Need to improve on:Specific offerings

Awareness

Not aware of service (209)36%

Don't look to the li-brary for help in this

area (73)13%

Students skills were sufficient (44)8%

Used in past and wasn't helpful (10)

2%

Gain doesn't justify giving up class time

(42)7%

service not appli-cable to my classes

(201)35%

Awareness suggestions• I'm not aware of what services the Library offers. Finding ways of letting me

know/reaching out to communicate services and possible uses of those services would be welcome.

• A lot of the information I know about the library comes from knowing of the librarians personally. So there's definitely an issue with people like me not knowing the scope of resources. I think it would be great if you have a librarian meet each new faculty one-on-one in their office as soon as they are hired to go over what's available. Schedule it in their office and don't take NO for an answer

• Develop a reader-friendly poster or brochure that highlights the kind of services the Cornell University library provides. This will be extremely helpful to anybody (especially a guest or visitor) who is here for a short-term period.

Research skills

0 to 24% of Students (58) 7%

25 to 49% of Students (189) 23%

50 to 74% of Students (330) 39%

75 to 100% of Students (134) 16%

I don't know (126) 15%

Research skills

Provided a little help (25)10%

provided a fair amount of help (88)

34%

Provided a great deal of help (145)

56%

Faculty’s view

38%

41%

21%

Undergrads’ view

Not very helpful

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

Faculty need skill development, too

• We stick with the same databases and search terms. There are easier ways to get references/papers that I may not know about. Refresher courses or a "did you know" might be helpful.

• The students are generally more advanced than I am regarding technology advances in library searches and service. I might need more seminars regarding use of social media and web links that could be of use in my teaching.

Communication about collections

• I would like to be asked periodically about what books/movies/primary source materials I'd be interested in having the library purchase.

• We should be more up-to-date with what's available. I'm not sure what's being offered in terms of digital sources nowadays. I think I need some library consultation but I often don't have time.

• A more transparent way of letting us know how the journals subscribed to and selected would be nice.

Top teaching challenges

St udent s Peda g og y Eng mt /Moti vn Aca dmc Ski l ls R esea rch Ski l ls Course cont ent T ime Cr it /Crea t v Think

Admin I ssues (U) Pr epa redness

451

264

162

91 8668 62 58 53

40

369

245

10478 69 69

3966

51

13

267

173

64 71

41 49 40 49 52

7

Teach Chall 1 Teach Chall 2 Teach Chall 3

Top scholarly/academic challenges

Time Funding Access to Colls Colls Res Skills Liaisons Schol. Comm Keep Currnt Admin (U)0

50

100

150

200

250

229

103 98

82 78 7765

5948

107

77

48

34

78

61 64

29

6780

51

2014

30 28

58

23

57

Chall 1 Chall 2 Chall 3

Freq

uenc

y

LiaisonsCollectionsElectronic

InstructionAccess to collections (content)

AwarenessStudents

Print / physical itemNegative

Scholarly communicationDiscovery

Individual unitsTeaching

PositiveMoney

Space and hoursResearch Skills

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180

Suggestions by code

See handout for sample suggestions