This survey of over 1,600 digital library users had three main findings: 1. Users highly rate the British Library, with over 90% recommending it and 82% seeing it as important for digital research. 2. Users conduct research mainly using printed texts and manuscripts, though portable devices are increasingly popular. Over half share research online. 3. Users want more remote access to digital resources and ability to view content on their devices. Three-quarters want offsite access and over half want in-library device access.

1. Digital Scholarship Survey
2014: Key findings
Aquiles Alencar-Brayner

2. www.bl.uk 2
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
(+34.5%) 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

3. www.bl.uk 3
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 devices
Comparison between 2011-14

4. www.bl.uk 4
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%

5. www.bl.uk 5
What users know
• 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. 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.
30.2%
21.5%
44.4%
Yes (241)
No (172)
Don't know
(355)
User awareness of publication in
digital repository

6. www.bl.uk 6
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 users.
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 and
Drawings (63)
Photographs (51)
Other (48)
Maps (38)
Sounds (26)
Moving images
(25)
Philatelic (1)
Preference of format for digitisation

7. www.bl.uk 7
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%
Postgraduate
student (519)
Teacher/lecturer
(271)
Personal
researcher (230)
Professional
researcher (205)
Other (152)
Information
professional (132)
Undergraduate
student (62)
Participants by
research categories