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Press Release from Primary Research Group, Inc.
Primary Research Group has published Libraries & the Mega-Internet Sites ( A
Survey of how Libraries Use and Relate to Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, eBAY, Amazon,
Facebook, YouTUBE & Other Mega-Internet Sites), ISBN 1-57440-096-7.
This report presents data from more than 120 academic, special and public libraries
about how they use and relate to the mega-internet sites such as Google,
Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace, eBay, Amazon, and others.
In many ways the mega-sites have transformed library management,
fostering change in information literacy education, library marketing
and public relations, cataloging, digitization, collection management and other aspects of
librarianship. The report provides hard data on exactly how libraries are dealing with the
emerging internet giants, how they are adopting, negotiating,
repelling, and embracing them. Just a few of the reports conclusions are reproduced below:
• More than 32% of the librarians responding to the survey considered
Wikipedia an “unreliable information source and don’t recommend its use,”
while another 65.3% considered it “generally reliable but to use with some
caution”, and only 2.48% considered it “as reliable as print encyclopedias”.
• Just over half of the libraries in the sample reported that their library staff
and patrons did not really use Google Scholar much. Three in 10 participants
answered that they used it “reasonably often,” while just over 8% reported
using it “extensively.” Fully 9% of the libraries in the sample were completely
unaware of Google Scholar.
• Awareness and use of Google Scholar generally increased as library
budgets increased. No library with a budget below $500,000 reported using
Google Scholar extensively.
• Over 28% of participants reported that they were currently working with a
search engine organization to digitize and make available online elements of
their collection. Larger libraries were far more likely than smaller libraries, in
terms of budget size, to be working with a search engine to digitize elements
of the collection. More than half of the libraries in the sample with an annual
overall budget of greater than $4.5 million are working with a search engine to
digitize parts of their collection, while only about 11% of libraries with annual
budgets of less than $1.5 million are working with a search engine for this
purpose.
• Overall, 23.14% of the libraries in the sample had offered workshops that
included instruction in use of the Yahoo search engine. Nearly half of all
public libraries in the sample had offered instruction in use of the Yahoo
search engine.
• 11.67% of the libraries in the sample have ever offered a course to their
patrons on how to use eBay. More than 41% of the public libraries in the
sample have offered such a course, as have 29.63% of libraries with budgets
of greater than $4.5 million.
• 17.36% of the libraries in the sample had a presence on the social
networking site Facebook. Interestingly, 25% of non-U.S. libraries in the
sample had Facebook pages, far more than the 16.51% of U.S. libraries in
the sample. As might be expected of a social networking site that got its start
exclusively focused on academia, academic libraries were much more likely
than other types of libraries to have a Facebook page. 22.67% of the higher
education libraries in the sample have a Facebook presence.
• 31.1% of the libraries in the sample had ever purchased an e-book from
Amazon. Non-U.S libraries were more likely than U.S. libraries to purchase
an e-book from Amazon. Indeed, more than 45% of the non-U.S. libraries in
the sample have purchased an e-book from Amazon, while only 29.63% of
the U.S. libraries in the sample have made such a purchase.
• Only seven libraries in our sample have digitized and sold digital print on
demand copies of out of copyright works or other works for which they have
copyright permission, and then have sold these items through online retailers.
Of those that have done this, 16.67% sold through Amazon, another 16.67%
did this through Google, and 66.67% through some other online bookseller.
• 9.24% of the libraries in the sample have one or more YouTube accounts
for the library. 16.67% of the non-U.S. libraries in the sample have at least
one YouTube account while only 8.41% of the U.S. libraries in the sample
had a YouTube account.
• 24% of the libraries in the sample use Yahoo Groups. Non-U.S. libraries
were far more likely to use Yahoo Groups than the U.S. libraries in the
sample; 58.33% of the non-U.S. libraries in the sample use Yahoo Groups,
while only 20.2% of U.S. libraries did so.
• 20.66% of the libraries in the sample have staff who use Google Docs
special productivity tools, including Google spreadsheets, word processing
capabilities and other features.
• 10.74% of the libraries in the sample not currently using Google Blogger
plan to do so in the near future. A quarter of non-U.S. libraries the sample
had such plans, as did 9.17% of the U.S. libraries.
The 100 page report presents more than 300 tables of data defining the
relationship between libraries and the megasites. For further information visit our
website at www.PrimaryResearch.com
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