Survey of US Higher Education Faculty 2023, Serving on Library Procurement Committees

Survey of US Higher Education Faculty 2023, Serving on Library Procurement Committees

This study identifies which faculty have served on library procurement committees, either representing their departments to the academic library, or working on departmental or college/university wide committees concerning library acquisitions and other strategies.   The report gives highly detailed data not only enabling readers to pinpoint participants and likely participants in library policy committees but understanding how faculty view such committees and the importance that they attach to them.



This 77-page study is based on data from a survey of 806 higher education faculty randomly chosen from nearly 500 colleges and universities in the USA. Data is broken out by personal variables such as work title, gender, personal income level, academic discipline, age and other variables, as well as institutional indicators such as college or university type or Carnegie class, enrollment size, public or private status and others.The data presented in the tables shows the level of involvement of college faculty in impacting academic library decisions regarding material acquisitions in their respective subject areas. Table 1.1 summarizes the data for the entire sample, showing that 32.01% of the respondents are rarely involved, 26.80% never involved, 25.31% occasionally involved, 11.54% involved, 2.98% highly involved, and 1.36% did not answer.

Table 1.2 breaks down the data by work title. It shows that deans, chairs, and distinguished faculty members are the most involved group with 21.74% being involved and 4.35% highly involved, followed by professors with 14.52%. involved and 2.97% highly involved. On the other hand, adjuncts are the least involved, with 60.66% never involved. Emeritus faculty also show high levels of involvement.