LJ’s ILS Survey: Are You Satisfied?
LJ recently asked librarians to tell us what they, and their patrons, thought of their ILSs, and their answers will strike a chord April 1, 2011| LJ Explores the Big Tools: a series of articles devoted to new developments in major tools for libraries | |
| “Liverpool’s Discovery” looks at a new search tool in action. | “Building a Better ERMS” examines e-resource management systems. |
| “The Next Generation of Discovery” delves into discovery tools. | “The New Frontier” presents LJ’s 2011 Automation Marketplace. |
| “The Future of the ILS” gives highlights from a roundtable of top ILS executives and librarians. | “Are You Satisfied?” showcases the results of LJ’s 2011 ILS satisfaction survey. |
LJ recently asked librarians to tell us what they, and their patrons, thought of their ILSs. Nearly 1300 librarians responded, including 709 public librarians and 541 academic librarians, and their answers will strike a chord with many readers.
For example, 62 percent of library directors said they were satisfied with their ILS—but only 36 percent of public services librarians on the front lines said the same. Many librarians said patrons wanted better search capability, with the familiar word Google repeated as a common refrain. And while fewer than 30 respondents used open source ILSs, most claimed satisfaction with them and said they would recommend them to colleagues.
METHODOLOGY
The survey was emailed to 2,012 tech services, reference, and collection development librarians at academic and public libraries in December 2010. In addition, the survey link was posted on electronic lists and advertised in the LJ Academic Newswire. An additional 1,678 academic librarians were emailed the survey in January. The survey closed in February with 1,292 responses.
