Preliminary results from digitisation survey

A Survey of Digitisation of Core Readings in Higher Education: preliminary results Jane Secker, June Hedges & Ned Potter Heron User Group Meeting 2nd July 2009

Context  Survey builds on those carried out by Liz Hart and Jenny Delasalle  New Comprehensive Licence  Timing: March - April 2009  Audience: Heron User Group members, but also LIS-Copyseek  Web-based survey

Survey topics 1. Background  Your institution  Digital readings at your institution  Copyright Licensing & compliance, incl. the new CLA Licence 2. Procedural Issues • Scanning • Delivery of readings • Management of readings 3. Wider Issues • Collection management • E-Learning

Respondents  44 institutions responded to the survey although some gaps  24 Full Heron members (3 Packtracker only)

Volume of digitisation  11 non-Heron members  Vast range in amount of digitisation from 20 - 2844 readings  563 average (mean)  Most anticipating a growth in numbers next year to an average of 866

Staffing levels  Variation from no staff to 5 or 6 in a team  18 had a dedicated team  19 did not have a dedicated team  A third had seen an increase in staffing to cope with demand but the majority (25 respondents) had not  Most promote their services (81%)

Motivations for scanning  Improve access to course readings: 37 (highest)  Support for e-learning: 31 (second highest)  Meeting student expectations: 22 (third highest)  Reduce need for multiple copies (save space): 13 (fourth highest)  Reduce need for multiple copies (save money): 8 (second lowest priority)  Raising the profile of your library: 6 (lowest priority)

CLA Licence  All apart from one respondent had signed the new CLA Licence  Only two had signed the comprehensive licence  Most regularly consult the CLA website (76% said they did)  65% (20 institutions) of all respondents saying it was ‘quite useful’ (only 3 people said they found it very useful and the remainder were indifferent)  15 institutions were using Packtracker for data reporting, 20 were using a central record sheet, 1 gets departs to complete, 2 using another method

Impact of the New Licence  Common themes include increase in workload as a greater amount of material is being scanned  Number of customers using HEI’s various digitisation services has widely increased  Almost everyone mentioned the addition of the US publishers as having a major impact  A few noted savings made due to no longer having to copyright-clear items

Impact on Paper Services  Harder to quantify; often the library isn’t the keeper of relevant photocopying statistics  General feeling is that paper copies may be reducing, but in line with general University policy rather than as a direct result of the Licence  A few libraries are trying to digitise their short-loan collections, but this is proving harder than anticpated

Licence Repertoire  Of 34 respondents, 31 said they’d like to see the repertoire increased, 2 said they saw no need for that, and 1 didn’t know  However, HEIs had extremely varied suggestions as to which countries should be included

Licence Repertoire (2) Regions HEIs would like to see included in the Licence Also mentioned 7 once each: 6 • Far East 5 • Japan 4 • France 3 • Spain 2 • South Africa 1 • “All English 0 Speaking Countries” nd via a da s y n lia an di nd ea na la ra na In m la op Ire st Ca da er er Au ur th G an lE Ne Sc Al

Copyright issues  Do you get copyright permissions outside the licence - 11 / 38 responses did not (20%)  The rest did, using: Heron (16), publishers (16) and the CCC (10) in the US  24 institutions have a copyright officer, 13 do not and one respondent wasn’t sure  LIS-Copyseek used by 35/38 respondents for queries, CLA consulted (29) colleagues (26), Copyright Officer (12)

Scanning  Who does your scanning?  In-house - 17  Outsource - 6  Both - 15  Other – 1  29 respondents said they outsourced to:  British Library (14)  Heron (11)  Other  13 respondents create text files, 23 do not and 3 didn’t know if they did!

Scanning (2)  Do you provide text for visually impaired students?  Yes 21  No 10  Don’t know 7  Source of scan  Original source 30 / 38  Photocopy 20 / 38  Copyright fee paid copies 34 / 38  Other 1  84% do NOT have a limit on the number of requests a lecturer can place for scans

Rejecting requests  The question “Do you digitise all readings you are asked to?” got the biggest response of all the ‘free text’ questions – key issue  Very few digitise all items requested to the extent of always obtaining clearance where necessary  Large proportion only scan what is eligible under the Licence; they do not typically copyright clear  Many take a mixed approach: “If the request falls outside the CLA Licence then a discussion is held with the academics as to whether we progress their request to the HERON service (at a cost)”  Some have an annual limit, either overall or per department / module

Delivery of readings  Via catalogue 1  Via reading list 11  Via VLE 36 / 39  Other 4  Readings tend to be stored on library server or in VLE although some institutions store in more than one place

Management and feedback  Reading lists generally updated by library staff, less frequently by academic and admin staff  15 of our respondents used Packtracker to manage the process, more had no system, although 6 had an in-house system  Requests for digitisation almost always came from academic staff, although subject librarians were sometimes involved  Only 14 respondents collected usage stats of readings (21 did not)  Only 5 respondents collect feedback on the service in their library survey

Responding to Usage Stats  Of those who did collect usage statistics, only 3 currently act upon them  Several say ‘not yet’ or ‘we intend to’, but it seems a tricky area – “We would [take action based on usage stats] if we could get the stats from Blackboard (sore topic!)”

Collection management and e- resources  74% said their collection management policy took into account e-books  Similar numbers check e-book availability before scanning  23 respondents would scan an e-book if they received a request but only 3 would scan a journal  27 respondents said e-availability impacted on paper collections

E-learning / VLEs  All institution had a VLE  30/39 library staff had access to it  In only 4 cases were other permissions for other (e.g. AV materials) managed by the library

Further Issues Issues raised in free text question at the end include:  “Number of scans created is beginning to get unmanageable in terms of renewals”  “Some staff would like to incorporate materials into complex learning objects…”  Many practitioners are finding work-load a problem, due to taking it on in addition to current roles rather than as a dedicated team  “Managing digital readings is demanding, and requires extra staffing to do it properly”

Further Issues (2)  The issues of time, ongoing funding, difficulty of CLA reporting and problems of copyright compliance come up time and again  All these problems are exacerbated by up-scaling of each library’s digitisation service – even if there not a concerted effort to increase through-put, just reusing items year on year means the time / reporting / staffing burdens are always increasing

Any questions?  Jane j.secker@lse.ac.uk  June j.hedges@ucl.ac.uk  Ned E.Potter@leeds.ac.uk

Preliminary results from digitisation survey

by Jane Secker on Jul 08, 2009

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