Librarians spend an average 22 minutes a day reading print publications relating to their job and an average 10 minutes a day reading library-themed blogs, a survey has found.
Primary Research Group surveyed 555 full-time academic librarians in the United States and Canada for the report, released this week.
Librarians who were at least 60 years old spent the most time reading print publications, at 31 minutes a day. Academic librarians 30 or under spent the most time reading library-related blogs, at 19 minutes a day.
James Moses, the company’s director of research, said it was interested in monitoring technology use because academic librarians’ profession is so information-intensive. “They’re sort of the canary in the coal mine for technology in broader society,” he said.
The survey also tracked conference expenses, such as the average amount of money spent by librarians on lodging, meals, and travel costs. In that category, U.S. librarians spent an average of $1,484 over the past two years, while Canadians spent an average of $2,419.
Among surveys of academic librarians that Primary Research Group has in the works, Mr. Moses said, is one on how librarians view major Web services, such as Google and Bing, and how they feel about new library technologies.
A full version of the report is available for purchase on the Primary Research Group Web site.
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12 Responses to Report Measures Librarians’ Time Reading Job-Related Materials
barbarafister - March 5, 2010 at 5:59 pm
I am a librarian among librarians who, like me, spend hours a day scanning professional publications online an in print. Does this “canary in the coal mine” remark mean … what, we aren’t reading enough? we aren’t reading enough print? Are we doomed yet? How nice that we can purchase the report. I do think this kind of press release bears no relationship whatever to news or research.
rwiringa - March 5, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Conference expenses…$CN? $US?Converted already?
conniecrosby - March 5, 2010 at 9:49 pm
The cost of travel within or from Canada (especially flights) can often be higher than travel within the U.S. So it would not surprise me that Canadians on average spend more on this aspect without having any additional opportunity or value for professional development from the additional expenditure. I wonder if this was addressed in the survey as well.
ljanicke - March 5, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Academic librarians _who responded to the survey_ “spend an average 22 minutes a day reading print publications relating to their job and an average 10 minutes a day reading library-themed blog” … No idea if this tells us anything about the profession as a whole since nothing in the press release tells us anything about the sampling methods, reliability of the results, etc. See http://acrlog.org/2005/10/31/some-questions-about-survey-proliferation/ for some discussion/debate on this topic….
lithewish - March 7, 2010 at 12:21 pm
I echo Barbara’s confusion about the canary metaphor. Toxic mine shafts never work out well for the bird.On the other hand, it’s nice to see an article hinting at librarians’ lifeguard status in regard to the online information tsunami!– Erika Bennett
mbelvadi - March 7, 2010 at 12:33 pm
If academic librarians are the canary in the coal mine of new technology (which I agree they are), why aren’t they more open to holding conferences virtually, instead of forcing hundreds of people to fly long distances at great expense to hear presentations in large lecture halls that could just as easily be broadcast to participants via the web? I know there are some face-to-face activities like job hunting that are important to a few individuals at any given conference, but does that justify so much money being spent?Why aren’t library conference organizers at least experimenting with a hybrid model, e.g. some people attend in person and some online?There are many answers to this last, of course. One I believe is the tendency for librarian conference organizers to be ultra-conservative in their choice of physical venues, and the usual hotels and convention centers have no financial interest in supporting the kind of technology/network infrastructure necessary to succeed at broadcasting the sessions live.I did participate in a hybrid conference, ER&L, once, as a virtual participant and I found it almost as good as being in person and well worth saving the $1K towards attending another conference that didn’t offer that choice.
blendedlibrarian - March 8, 2010 at 8:02 am
@mbelvadi – maybe you need to spend more time reading the librarian blogs or following a few of the association twitter feeds. Maybe you’d know about this upcoming TOTALLY virtual conference being held by ACRL – http://bit.ly/26Qwh.In the last month we’ve also had the totally virtual Handheld Libraries conference. And if the folks at the Alliance Library System are holding a series of virtual learning programs on trendy topics.Bottom line, there’s so much virtual conference activity going on in the library world that it’s getting hard to attend just a small part of it. Given the evidence, it’s hard to describe the library conference scene as “ultra conservative”.Clearly someone isn’t doing a good job of keeping up.
commentarius - March 8, 2010 at 9:58 am
“Print publications” — does this include electronic versions of journals that are also printed? I find it hard to believe that librarians in this day and age are sitting in an office thumbing through print journals, then getting busy encouraging their users to abandon print and go e-only with everything. As a librarian for 20 years, I have long found the professional literature written by and for librarians to be almost infantile navel-gazing, obsessed with studying each other’s attitudes and behavior, and churning out verbose demonstrations of the blatantly obvious, rather than anything new, meaningful and worth reading. We’ve heard it all before. Same goes for conferences. These are the wages of tenure for staff who shouldn’t be tenured in the first place.Blogs are a little more with it at least, more current and less fixated on self-advancement.
subcrea - March 8, 2010 at 10:08 am
Should the Chronicle provide free advertising for PRG’s report business? That’s about all this article is.
jdubus - March 8, 2010 at 1:39 pm
As an “older” librarian (63), I find that my eyes suffer tremendously from the hours I spend each day viewing information information online. If I have a choice, I “rest” my eyes by looking at information in print. With millions–much younger than I, too–suffering from “dry eye syndrome” and no miraculous cures for it, I’m surprised that so little is written anywhere about the physiological/medical problems that so much online use contributes to. JHD
eelalien - March 8, 2010 at 5:22 pm
This information “teaser” is absolutely WORTHLESS on its own merits. The entire point seems to be for gullible interested parties to spend money on potential drivel by paying for a report on nothing. Librarians deserve far better, Chronicle.
mbelvadi - March 15, 2010 at 8:02 am
Blendedlibrarian (I refuse to be so pseudo-savvy as to put an @ in front of your address as if we were writing through twitter, which we’re not):I know perfectly well that specialty workshops are being held virtually. You cite an ACRL ‘conference’ which turns out to be one such very narrowly focused workshop. Handheld Librarians is a great move, but similar to ER&L in that it’s geared towards the upper end of the technology curve among librarians. Canada has an excellent online-only workshop series for librarians called EI. But mainstream broad-appeal conferences are still face-to-face only. Until we see the bi-annual ACRL conference and the annual ALA conference being held virtually (or “simulcast” virtually with the live event), I stand by my characterization. And it amazes me how many librarians who have the courage or other motivation to make live presentations at national conferences are unwilling to share those even after the fact, even just their powerpoint files, online afterwards. I’m sure there are multiple motives involved, but the end result is a lack of sharing among a profession that claims open sharing as one of its highest values.