In a survey to a random sample of WebJunction members this spring, respondents answered a question on how frequently they used online tools, either in or outside of their professional life. We found the results interesting. Nearly half of the respondents (49%) use email “listservs” daily. One-third of the respondents (35%) use professional or social networking sites daily. A quarter or less of the respondents use the following daily: online news or magazines (21%), blogs (14%), RSS feeds (14%), bookmarking sites (10%), wikis (9%), employment sites (6%) and online courses (3%).The chart below shows the full results.
When we separated the responses by library type, we saw some notable differences. Academic library respondents are more likely to use the following online tools daily than public library respondents:
- Email listservs (73% of Academic vs. 44% of Public)
- Professional or social networking sites (44% vs. 32%)
- Blogs (29% vs. 10%)
- RSS feeds (32% vs. 10%)
- Wikis (17% vs. 7%)
Significant differences were found among locations as well. Urban library respondents (72%) are more likely to use email listservs daily than suburban (57%) and rural (45%) library respondents. Also, urban library respondents (18%) are more likely to use RSS feeds daily than rural library respondents (9%). Suburban library respondents (40%) are more likely to use professional or social networking sites daily than urban (31%) and rural (31%) library respondents. It was also reported that more than one quarter (28%) of respondents use web-based content (on blogs, wikis, social networking sites and more) toward professional development.
Finally, when we compare these results with those to a similar question posed to our members a year ago, we see evidence of some shifts in online tool use. In 2009, 61% of respondents reported using listservs daily, which is 12% higher than this year. Meanwhile, the percent of respondents who report never using social networking sites dropped from 39% to 30%. And online reading seems to have decreased as well, with 11% drops in those who report reading blogs or online news sites daily. The trend away from email toward social networking sites like Facebook and twitter is not exclusive to library staff: this shift has been reported in the media as happening across the globe. So libraries can expect that patrons will be more likely to want to interact with their library via social networking tools and to expect that their library will support their use of these tools on the publicly accessible computers.
Great suryey, Sharon! It seems that the list serve remains a pervasive and popular tool to librarians of all types. I’d love to know what percentage of listserve postings have true relevance to each member of a given group. I’d guess that in general, it’s very low… and that we’re all either deleting items wholesale, ignoring them, or reading a lot of listserve postings not pertinent or valuable to us as subscribers.
[...] vraag is eveneens: nee, niet vanzelf. Dat wordt nog eens duidelijk uit het recente onderzoek van WebJunction naar het gebruik van online tools, inclusief web 2.0-toepassingen, door bibliotheekmedewerkers. [...]
I doubt that listervs are that popular. I bet some people responded to “Email listservs” as though it was equivalent to simply “e-mail.”
[...] Original Post on BlogJunction [...]
[...] Direct referring to a WebJunction survey on librarians’ use of technology tools entitled “Library Staff Report Their Use of Online Tools” The methodology for the survey is not given, so we were somewhat wary of the results; however, it [...]
[...] Library Staff Report Their Use of Online Tools [...]
There have been some blogs that have referenced and commented on this post:
Roy Tennant: “An Industry In Search of Failure”
ALA TechSource: “Keeping Up With Keeping Up”
Stephen’s Lighthouse: “Do Libraries Stay Atop the Adoption Curve”
[...] sitio WebJunction realizó una encuesta con el personal que trabaja en las bibliotecas en torno al uso de herramientas en [...]
I know some school library folks answered the survey–I was one of them ;<)
Was there any data worth sharing from that group?
[...] sitio WebJunction realizó una encuesta con el personal que trabaja en las bibliotecas en torno al uso de herramientas en línea. En esta [...]
I worry about the “as needed” category. For example, I recently finished an online course, which I checked in on daily. But I do not currently have plans for another course, so does that make me a “daily,” an “as needed,” or a “never?”
Likewise, I’d use online job sites if I was job hunting, but I’m not. “As needed” or “never?”
And I need to use email listservs daily, at least to avoid having my inbox flood. If I use them daily as needed, is it “daily” or “as needed?”
As to Nancy’s comment about the popularity of listservs, I’d suspect that they are that popular, when the survey audience is limited to WebJunction members.
@Tom Thank you for participating in the survey! Only 6% of survey respondents were from school libraries, so isolating those reponses would not be statistically significant. Sounds like a great question for AASL or SLA to pose to its membership. @Ed The “as needed” category was intended for responses that are not covered by the other categories. Hopefully, someone who feels they need to read a listserv on a daily basis chose the Daily response rather than As Needed. Multiple choice questions are frequently subject to different interpretations, but in this case we relied on the expertise of our survey consultant who recommended the As Needed option.