The Senate and Federation Library Survey concluded Nov. 15 with an impressive overall response rate of 26 percent.

“The library thanks all faculty, researchers and postdocs who took the time and made an effort to respond,” said William F. Garrity, deputy university librarian and chief of staff. “Your input is central to helping us continue to offer the resources and services needed for research, teaching and patient care at UC Davis.”

The goal of the study is to help the library assess faculty and researcher needs and practices related to research and teaching support, including in the digital environment. The survey was conducted using the Ithaka S+R Local Faculty Survey. Ithaka S+R is the consultancy arm of Ithaka, and is a not-for-profit organization known in part for its national Faculty Survey Series. Using Ithaka extends a number of significant benefits, including standard comparison with other universities, pretested questions, and help with analysis.

The survey instrument was sent to 5,100 faculty, researchers and postdocs across the Academic Senate and Academic Federation. Surveys recently conducted on UC’s Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Cruz campuses were largely limited to ladder faculty; UC Davis, on the other hand, wanted to gather input from all researchers and teachers, and so also surveyed both Academic Federation personnel and post-docs.

The UC Davis survey drew 1,314 responses, for an overall response rate of 26 percent (double that of UCLA and UCSD and just short of UCSC’s 28 percent). The UC Davis survey received a good level of response from the majority of individual academic departments; the Department of Classics achieved the highest response rate (73 percent).

Presentation of results

The survey result dataset will be delivered to the library soon; findings and analyses themselves will be widely shared and discussed with the UC Davis community, beginning in winter quarter.

• Report of findings — A high-level overview of survey results, including graphs and tables for aggregated responses to questions. Responses to questions will be grouped by the question modules selected for UC Davis: Discovery, Access, Digital Research Activities, Student Research Skills, Role of the Library, and Data Preservation and Management.
• Analytical memo — A more detailed report that both interprets findings in comparison to similar institutions and responds to particular focus areas of interest to UC Davis.
• Presentations — Ithaka research principals will come to Davis to present findings both in open meetings and to specific groups and communities. Watch for announcements as presentations are scheduled.

The reports themselves are likely to be published here on the library’s website.

Questions or comments? Contact Deputy University Librarian Garrity by email.