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Dear all, (Apologies for cross-posting) I have collected the results of the survey about library services for enterprise organized by Loughborough University Library. The questionnaire received answers from 9 institutions, 4 of which are currently offering this kind of services and 1 is planning to. The results are as follows: Motivation to provide such service: - “Institution led commitment to a business enterprise centre.” (University of Chichester) - “Desire by the University to foster good relations with the local business community. Hopefully leads to co-operation and partnership with research, student placements etc.” (University of Stirling) - “UQL has service agreements with 4 hospitals to provide library services - this has been a long term arrangement.” (The University of Queensland Library) - “The organisation is dealing much more with business, with on-site tenants, and this is part of our remit now. 'Enterprise' is now part of our library audience. Also, especially on one of our sites, our staff numbers have reduced, and we need more non-staff customers to justify the library's existence.” (Science and Technology Facilities Council) - “Historically we have before I arrived in 2000” (University of Reading) Type of served enterprise: - Business incubator: 4 (Chichester, Stirling, STFC, Reading) - University spin-outs: 1 (Stirling) - Other university-related companies: 1 (Stirling) - External companies: 3 (Stirling, STFC, Reading) - Hospitals: 1 (UQL) Services offered: - Loans: 4 (Chichester, UQL, STFC, Reading) - Print/copying: 2 (Chichester, STFC) - Access to the building: 1 (STFC) - Reference: 3 (Chichester, UQL, STFC) - Expertise librarian: 2 (Chichester, UQL) - Literature searches: 1 (UQL) - Document delivery: 1 (UQL) - Inter-library loans: 2 (UQL, STFC) - Information skills training: 1 (UQL) - External borrower membership: 1 (Reading) - Corporate membership: 1 (Stirling) - Enterprise Zone: 1 (Stirling) Potential users: - Not yet begun (Chichester) - About 100 on site A; about 150 on site B (STFC) - 7000 (UQL) Actual users: - c.5 individuals (Reading) - About 30 registered on site A; about 10 registered on site B (STFC) - 4587 (UQL) Issues: - “Making terms and conditions fit with other services e.g. IT” (Chichester) - “Mostly internal administration. Reaching the right companies through publicity hasn't been easy.” (Stirling) - "Staff from other Hospitals (not the ones we have agreements with) and the Health Department come wanting our services. We do not provide this service automatically each year - we have budgets which we present to the 4 Hospitals each year and they have to agree to them in order to access our services." (UQL) - "Some information needs from Enterprise are very scientific/technical and we don't have the subject expertise to help at that level, although we can put people in contact with internal staff who work in those areas. We cannot offer access to online resources as our existing licenses are for staff only and tied down to academic use." (STFC) Managing non-educational access to e-resources: - Not offering: 5 (Chichester, Stirling, UQL, STFC, Reading) Costs: - “Part of their agreement/fee to the University” (Chichester) - “Enterprise Zone is free to use for companies working with the university. Otherwise commercial rates are charged. Companies do not have to be based at the University innovation park.” (Stirling) - “We do not charge anything extra for library services - we deem it part of the package of locating on our sites. The usage is low, and much of the use is of physical stock or staff expertise that is already there - we don't 'buy-in' anything extra. The enterprises we serve are very small and we do not want to put barriers in place by charging. Also the administration overhead of invoicing etc. can be more expensive than the services we are charging for." (STFC) - “All part of the agreement with the University as they pay rents for office space” (Reading) Additional comments: - “I think this is a really bad idea. Commercializing library service is always is.” (Anonymous) - "It’s a good idea for fostering link, support and respect as institutions in the public domain but in all these cases the core customers need to be considered. For example here we have a lot antagonism between the resident scholarly community of scholars, students and staff versus conferences and events. The symbiosis doesn't always work. Whilst income generating this can be at the expense of our core constituents and their needs. IT staff catering staff and library staff can be diverted to the fulfilling short term immediate expediences at the expense of short medium and long term goals of their respective departments" (Floersheimer Library, Wolfson College Oxford) - “One major difficulty is in the Branches that provide the services - we have 2 networks: a hospital network and a UQ network. This means our hospital clients have to negotiate both - which is never easy for those who are not very computer literate - yes - there still are folk who experience difficulties.” (UQL) - “I believe strongly in supporting businesses in their information needs, and when an organisation (eg universities or research councils) have a remit to collaborate and support business and enterprise, then proving access to information services should be part of that remit.” (STFC) Thank you very much to those who participated and also who forwarded and publicized the survey! Your collaboration has been very helpful. Best wishes, Irene Aguayo Student of International Master in Digital Library Learning http://dill.hioa.no/