Preliminary Survey Results

You may remember that ILS ran a survey in November and December last year. We wanted to know what types of resources you use, how you're using the Fountains building and what physical and digital resources might best support your research.

We have some preliminary results to share.

• 70 of you were invited to take the survey and there were 33 responses (response rate of 47%). 
• You report relatively high levels of awareness of what ILS offers in terms of training and resources but rely most heavily on print books and electronic journals. Correspondingly, you suggest that we purchase more titles.
• 63% think that we should offer more drop-in training. 
• You report low use of the Fountains building and ILS computers and also low awareness of the lockers and the Fountains graduate research area. (For those who are interested in trying it out, it's the glassed-in area on the ground floor of Fountains housing the theses and Victorian children's literature. This area is set aside for graduate research study.)
• 81% of respondents rated ILS’ researcher services as either ‘useful’ or ‘very useful’. There is no significant relationship between how useful respondents rate ILS and your use of services or level of awareness. 

First responses from us: 

• We hear you that you need more books and more electronic access! We're working hard to build our collection and are in the process of budgeting for next year, and hope to only improve the range and depth of our collection. 
• Meantime, there were two suggestions for how to improve communication about the ILL process, and we'll take those into consideration and see if there's more information we can share while you're waiting for materials to arrive from other institutions.
• We've been offering drop-in workshops for researchers this semester and so far, the feedback has been good.

And finally, thanks to all of you who took the time to give us your feedback. As you well know, surveys are imperfect but do offer us a snapshot of needs and perceptions, and we hope to continue gathering information from you to inform our future in ILS. 15 of you gave us your email addresses and we will be contacting you to see if you would be willing to sit down with us after Easter for a more in-depth conversation on what you need in terms of service, training and collections. More details and an open invitation to researchers will follow here and from the Research Office.

Your comments are very welcome.

Useful Links for Keeping Track of your Reading

Today's ILS researcher support session is focussing on keeping up to date with current publications and organising your personal digital and print library. You'll see a number of services demonstrated, and you'll be able to find the links to those services here.

Digital Alerts:

·         Zetoc

·         Ebsco/Discover

Feedreader:

·         Feedly

·         Others include NewsBlur, TheOld Reader, Digg Reader

Storage:

·         RefWorks and EndNote

·         LibraryThing

·         Mendeley, Zotero, GoodReads  are other possibilities

If you'd like to come along to today's session on Keeping Track of Your Reading, please drop by DG 103 at 11:00. If you missed this workshop, we'll be running this and others throughout the semester. More information here.

Keeping track of your reading from leahemary

Keeping Track of Your Reading

Staying on top of new articles and information in your discipline is a continual challenge. Tools like Zetoc, Feedly, and DiggReader can provide you with alerts. Then what are you going to do with the printouts and electronic files of things 'read' and 'to read'? RefWorks and others are available for your organising your digital and physical library.

Leah Emary will be offering a session on 'Keeping Track of Your Reading' for researchers on Monday 17 February at 11:00 in DG103. Please feel free to drop in. The first 30 minutes will be for demonstrating the tools and Leah will be available for the next 30 minutes for any library research questions you may have.

Remember - one to one support available

If you have specific questions regarding obtaining, evaluating and keeping track of the information you need for your research, remember that we have a team of academic liaison librarians who offer one to one tutorials to all members of YSJ's community.  They can help you identify the best search tools for your subject area and needs, help refine the searches you are using in them and advise of the best ways of getting hold of the end resource.  So, if you think this would be of help to you, just ask the academic liaison librarian responsible for your subject:

Lottie Alexander: Faculty of Arts (English Literature, Creative Writing, Film and TV Production, Media Studies, Film Studies, Music, Music Production, Theatre, Dance)
Leah Emary: Faculty of Arts (History, American Studies, Fine Arts, Product Design, Computer Science)
Clare McCluskey: Faculty of Education and Theology (all subjects)
Jane Munks: York St John Business School (all subjects) and Faculty of Health and Life Sciences (Sport, Psychology and Counselling)
Victoria Watt: Faculty of Health and Life Sciences (Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Health and Social Care)