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/
