Highlights From The Survey of Academic Library Subject Specialists: Biology & Medical Sciences

Selected findings from a new Primary Research Group report.
From the The Survey of Academic Library Subject Specialists: Biology & Medical Sciences Summary Page:

This study is based on data from 55 colleges with programs in medicine and biology, predominantly from medical schools and PhD-level or research universities in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Australia/New Zealand. Participants include Carnegie-Mellon, Harvard University, Rice University, McGill University, and many others.

Selected Findings

• 19.23 percent of libraries in the sample–23.81 percent of those in the United States but none of those in other countries–have received contributions from other departments of their college or organization to pay for information sources desired by these departments

• 34.62 percent of libraries in the sample, including 42.11 percent of higher education libraries and a third of medical and veterinary school libraries, have an endowment, grant, or other special allocation that falls outside the normal library budget but that supplements library purchases in biology and/or the life sciences

• Libraries in the sample have experienced a 2.5 percent increase in the price of print books in biology over the past year and an 8.75 percent increase in the price of e-books

• Libraries in the sample have increased spending on biology e-books from $6,016 in 2011 to $7,520 in 2012

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