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A Comparative Study 251
251
A Comparative Study of Library
Surveys of Internet Users at Seton
Hall University in 1998 and 2001
Xue-Ming Bao
Xue-Ming Bao is an Assistant Professor/Librarian in University Library at Seton Hall University; e-
mail: baoxuemi@shu.edu. The author acknowledges the assistance of Arthur W. Häfner, Professor and
Dean of the University Libraries, and Richard E. Stern, Associate Professor, Coordinator of Reference
Services and Chair of the Library Home Page Task Team, for their critical reviews and helpful comments.
This article compares data collected in library surveys of Internet users
at Seton Hall University in 1998 and 2001. The aim of the comparison is
to provide information on changes in library users’ Internet use behav-
ior, satisfaction levels, and problems in using the Internet. The response
distribution of the people in different categories represents the popula-
tion of Seton Hall University in approximate proportions in both surveys.
This article discusses the challenges that were met with visible, moder-
ate, and no improvements. It points out what remains to be the major
challenge for librarians.
hat changes have occurred
with regard to the Internet as
a component of electronic ser-
vices in academic libraries in
the past five years? In a 1996 ALA survey,
Mary J. Lynch reported that 87 percent of
the academic libraries in doctorate-grant-
ing institutions included in the survey
provided information access through
home pages on the World Wide Web, 84
percent provided formal Internet training
for faculty, and 90 percent provided stu-
dent training.1 A sign of change was re-
flected in Mick O’Leary’s article, “New
Academic Information Model Bypasses
Libraries,” published in 2001.2 He wrote
that several ambitious, well-founded in-
formation distributors such as XanEdu,
Questia, and Ebrary seek to replace the
library–vendor partnership with new
channels that cut the library out of the
loop. On the other hand, Mark Y. Herring
gave ten reasons why the Internet is no
substitute for a library in an article pub-
lished in April 2001.3 Herring asserted that
the Internet has not made libraries obso-
lete.
The author conducted a library survey
of Internet users at Seton Hall University
(South Orange, New Jersey) in 1998. The
survey’s purpose was to collect data that
the university’s librarian faculty and ad-
ministration could use to analyze user
satisfaction with information services
provided through the Web. Seton Hall
classroom faculty and students completed
786 questionnaires. About 80 percent of
the respondents reported using the Web
on a daily or weekly basis. The results
revealed valuable information about the
Internet users’ search strategies and lev-
els of satisfaction with using the Web.4
252 College & Research Libraries May 2002
Seton Hall University Library’s home
pages had experienced many positive
changes since 1998. For example, they
provided access to more academic sub-
scription databases in 2001 than they had
three years earlier; the design of the li-
brary home pages reflected more of the
collective wisdom of the librarians; and a
larger assortment of interactive library
Web forms were provided. The new
changes in the library home pages raise
two key questions: How do the new
changes meet the needs of students and
faculty at Seton Hall University? and
What strategies should Seton Hall Uni-
versity librarians pursue to improve li-
brary services through the home pages?
Purpose
The purpose of the 2001 survey was to
collect data that Seton Hall University li-
brarian faculty and administration could
use to analyze library users’ Internet
search behavior, satisfaction levels, and
the needs of the information services pro-
vided through the library’s home pages.
This study is a descriptive survey and a
follow-up to the 1998 survey.5 The data
will provide information on changes in
library user habits between 1998 and 2001.
In general terms, the objective of the study
is to serve as “an aid … in planning, im-
proving public relations, and even mar-
keting.”6
Survey Instrument
The online survey instrument described
in this research was pilot-tested by ten
people at Seton Hall University: four stu-
dents, two teaching faculty members, and
four librarians and library administrators.
It was modified based on their responses
and suggestions. The instrument at-
tempted to elicit answers to the follow-
ing questions repeated from the 1998 sur-
vey distributed in paper form:
1. Who is using the Internet and the
library’s home pages?
2. What are the academic majors or
fields of study of the users?
3. How frequently does the user
search the Internet?
4. What does the user search for on
the Internet?
5. What is the user ’s satisfaction level
with search results?
6. How long does it take for the user
to find “satisfactory” results?
7. What problems has the user en-
countered when searching the Internet?
8. Has the user visited the university
library’s home pages?
9. Does the user find the university
library’s home pages helpful in search-
ing the Internet?
10. How does the user find information
on the Internet?
11. What are the user ’s favorite
Internet search engine(s)?
12. Academically, whose responsibility
is it to teach the user how to search the
Internet effectively?
13. What training courses would the
user attend?
Data Collection
In Applied Statistics, John Neter, William
Wasserman, and G. A. Whitemore stated
that a census of a finite population is a
study that includes every element of the
population and a census is appropriate
when it is easy to reach everyone included
in the study.7 In Descriptive Statistical Tech-
niques for Librarians, Arthur W. Häfner
stated: “Whether the population is
sampled or surveyed completely (census),
the librarian will want to apply algo-
rithms to reorganize and summarize the
raw data.”8 This author collected the 2001
survey data by means of a census of the
8,000+ people, including students, faculty,
administrators, and staff, on the
university’s main campus via a direct e-
mailing to their Seton Hall e-mail ac-
counts. The e-mail cover letter provided:
• the researcher ’s affiliation with the
university;
• a brief description of the project;
• a statement of the voluntary nature
of the project;
• a statement of anonymity/confi-
dentiality of the subject’s data.
People were asked to click on a
hypertext link in the e-mail cover letter
A Comparative Study 253
TABLE 1
Percent of Respondents of Different
Categories Filling Out the Survey
1998 2001
n = 786 n = 581
Undergraduate 75.8% 57.3%
Graduate 20.4% 18.8%
Faculty 3.8% 8.6%
Admin/Staff 10.2%
Other 5.2%
to access the online questionnaire.9 The
online instrument required about five
minutes to complete.
The survey e-mail cover letter was sent
on January 16, 2001, a week after the be-
ginning of the new spring semester. A
total of 581 responses were received, of
which 567 were received within the first
two weeks of the direct e-mailing and
nine were received between the third and
fifth weeks. The mass direct e-mailing to
8,000+ people caused concern within the
university’s Division of Computing Ser-
vices because e-mailings for surveys were
new to the campus and it was thought
that they might clog up the university’s
e-mail server. The second announcement
of the survey was published on February
26, 2001, in the university’s community
announcement bulletin board. Only five
more responses were received after the
second announcement. The 2001 online
survey yielded fewer responses (581)
than the 1998 paper survey did (786).
The 1998 survey focused on students
and faculty only; the 2001 survey in-
cluded students, faculty, administra-
tors, and staff. If 8,000+ were the popu-
lation, 581 responses represented a low
response rate (7%).
In Survey Research Methods, Floyd J.
Fowler Jr. remarked that a 5 to 20 per-
cent response rate was low but added:
“There is no agreed-upon standard for
a minimum acceptable response rate. …
One generalization that seems to hold
up for most mail surveys, though it is
inferential, is that people who have a
particular interest in the subject matter
or the research itself are more likely to re-
turn mail questionnaires than those who
are less interested. This means that mail
surveys with low response rates may be
biased significantly in ways that are re-
lated directly to the purposes of the re-
search.”10 With this caution in mind, the
author qualified the survey projection to
the students, faculty, administrators, and
staff who are interested in using the
Internet only, rather than the entire popu-
lation of Seton Hall University.
To analyze the data, the Statistical
Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was
employed. Data from the survey instru-
ments were coded and subjected to SPSS.
Frequency tabulations were applied to
obtain descriptive measures of the re-
sponses.
Results
User Demographics
Table 1 shows that 786 people completed
the paper survey instrument in 1998 and
581 completed the online survey instru-
ment in 2001. In 1998, print survey instru-
ments were sent to the teaching faculty
via campus mail to be distributed to stu-
dents. Therefore, administrators and staff
were not included in the 1998 survey. In
2001, the online survey form’s URL was
sent to all people with a Seton Hall e-mail
account so that administrators and staff
were able to participate in the survey.
Because the exact responses of the two
TABLE 2
Percent of Respondents� Academic
Major or Field
1998 2001
n = 786 n = 581
Arts & Sciences 44.7% 44.4%
Business 23.3% 16.4%
Diplomacy 0.1% 2.8%
Education 18.2% 14.6%
Medical Education 4.1% 3.3%
Nursing 5.2% 2.1%
Theology 1.7% 2.6%
Other 2.7% 13.9%
254 College & Research Libraries May 2002
TABLE 4
Percent of Respondents
Searching Information Related
to Academic Studies or Not Related
to Academic Studies
1998 2001
n = 786 n = 581
Information related
to academic studies 83.2% 88.1%
Information not related
to academic studies 73.9% 81.6%
TABLE 5
Percent Of Respondents� Levels Of Satisfaction
For Internet Search Results
1998 2001
n = 786 n = 581
1 (High Satisfaction) 7.8% 18.1%
2 36.1% 43.0%
3 37.0% 27.4%
4 11.8% 6.4%
5 (Low Satisfaction) 3.1% 1.2%
surveys are different, it is only meaning-
ful to compare percentages of the re-
sponses rather than the exact counts of
the responses. A higher percentage of fac-
ulty (8.6%) participated in the online sur-
vey in 2001 than in the paper survey in
1998 (3.8%). Undergraduate participation
dropped in 2001 (57.3%), compared to
1998 (75.8%). However, the response dis-
tribution of the people in different catego-
ries represented the population of Seton
Hall University in approximate propor-
tions in both the 1998 and 2001 surveys.
Table 2 shows that in both surveys,
majority responses were from three aca-
demic majors: Arts & Sciences (44.7% in
1998; 44.4% in 2001), Business (23.3% in
1998; 16.4% in 2001), and Education
(18.2% in 1998; 14.6% in 2001). Other re-
sponses from academic majors included
Nursing (5.2% in 1998; 2.1% in 2001),
Graduate Medical Education (4.1% in
1998; 3.3% in 2001), Theology (1.7% in
1998; 2.6% in 2001), and Diplomacy (0.1%
in 1998; 2.8% in 2001). The
“other” category’s percent-
ages increased from 2.7 per-
cent in 1998 to 13.9 percent in
2001 due to the participation
of administrators and staff in
the 2001 survey.
Internet Use Frequency
and Satisfaction Levels
Table 3 shows that daily use
of the Web doubled in 2001
(84.3%), compared to 1998
(40.2%). Weekly use (38.3% in
1998; 10.5% in 2001) and monthly use
(10.7% in 1998; 0.9% in 2001) declined
sharply in 2001. Almost no one claimed
“seldom” use of the Internet in the 2001
survey (0.3%), compared to 1998 (6.6%).
Table 4 shows that respondents
searched the Internet for information re-
lated to both their academic (83.2% in
1998; 88.1% in 2001) and nonacademic
studies (73.9% in 1998; 81.6% in 2001),
with a slight increase in both categories
in 2001.
Using a scale of five levels of satisfac-
tion, where one indicates the highest and
five the lowest, table 5 shows that the re-
spondents’ levels of satisfaction for
Internet search results increased substan-
tially. In 1998, only 7.8 percent of respon-
dents indicated a high level of satisfac-
tion, compared to 18.1 percent in 2001. In
1998, 36.1 percent rated their satisfaction
for Internet search results as level two,
compared to 43.0 percent in 2001. In con-
trast, the percentages of satisfaction lev-
TABLE 3
Percent of Respondents�
Frequency of Using the World
Wide Web on the Internet
1998 2001
n = 786 n = 581
Daily 40.2% 84.3%
Weekly 38.3% 10.5%
Monthly 10.7% 0.9%
Seldom 6.6% 0.3%
Other 2.7% 13.9%
A Comparative Study 255
els three (37.0% in 1998; 27.4% in 2001),
four (11.8% in 1998; 6.4% in 2001), and
five (3.1% in 1998; 1.2% in 2001) all de-
creased substantially.
Internet Search Results and
Problems
Table 6 shows that more respondents
were able to obtain satisfactory search
results within a short period. In 1998,
only 5.0 percent of respondents
achieved satisfactory results in less than
ten minutes, compared to 10.0 percent
in 2001. In 1998, 23.5 percent of respon-
dents spent 11 to 20 minutes, compared
to 24.1 percent in 2001. However, the per-
cent of respondents spending twenty
minutes or more to obtain satisfactory
search results decreased in 2001: 30.7 per-
cent spent 21 to 30 minutes in 1998, com-
pared to 28.9 percent in 2001; and 33.6 per-
cent in 1998 spent 30 minutes or more,
compared to 31.7 percent in 2001.
Table 7 identifies three major problems
encountered by users when searching the
Internet:
• do not find information needed
(49.2% in 1998; 54.7% in 2001);
• no full-text information can be cited
for academic study and/or research
(43.8% in 1998; 52.8% in 2001);
• too many hits (38.4% in 1998; 50.1%
in 2001).
Use of the University Library Home
Page
Table 8 shows that less than half of the
respondents (41.3% in 1998) visited the li-
brary home page; however, the percent-
age increased to 71.1 percent in 2001 when
conducting their research.
Table 9 shows that out of the 41.3 per-
cent of respondents who accessed the li-
brary home page in 1998, 19.2 percent
found it helpful, 13.7 percent found it
somewhat helpful, 5.3 percent found it
very helpful, and 2.5 percent found it not
helpful. In 2001, more respondents
viewed the library home page in a favor-
able way. Of the 71.1 percent of the re-
spondents who accessed the library home
page in 2001, 32.9 percent found it help-
ful, 23.8 percent found it somewhat help-
ful, 11.2 percent found it very helpful, and
3.8 percent found it not helpful.
Internet Search Strategies
Table 10 shows that using Internet search
engines was the preferred way for re-
spondents to search the Internet in both
1998 (83.6%) and 2001 (84.7%), followed
by directly entering a URL or Web ad-
dress (63.9% in 1998; 69.5% in 2001). The
percentage of respon-
dents using categorized
gateway Internet r e-
source listings (e.g., the
library’s Web listings by
subject) doubled from
17.8 percent in 1998 to
33.6 percent in 2001. The
percentage of respon-
dents using academic
subscription databases
tripled from 12.1 percent
in 1998 to 41.7 percent in
2001.
TABLE 6
Percent Of Respondents� Time
Spent On Searching Satisfactory
Results Per Session
1998 2001
n = 786 n = 581
5�10 minutes 5.0% 10.0%
11�20 minutes 23.5% 24.1%
21�30 minutes 30.7% 28.9%
31+ minutes 33.6% 31.7%
TABLE 7
Percent of Respondents� Problems Encountered
When Searching the Internet
1998 2001
n = 786 n = 581
Too many hits 38.4% 50.1%
Do not find information needed 49.2% 54.7%
No full-text information can be cited
for academic study and/or research 43.8% 52.8%
Other 16.3% 11.5%
256 College & Research Libraries May 2002
TABLE 8
Percent of Respondents Using
the Library�s Home Pages
1998 2001
n = 786 n = 581
Yes 41.3% 71.1%
No 54.3% 24.8%
Table 11 shows that Yahoo remained
the favorite Internet search engine among
the respondents in 2001 (69.7%); however,
the percentage dropped sharply in com-
parison with 80.5 percent in 1998. The
search engines that increased the percent-
age of users included: Alta Vista (27.6%
in 1998; 34.6% in 2001), Excite (27.7% in
1998; 33.2% in 2001), Lycos (17.0% in 1998;
33.9% in 2001), Hotbot (3.8% in 1998;
17.6% in 2001), and MetaCrawler (2.3%
in 1998; 7.4% in 2001). The search engines
that decreased the percentage of users
included InfoSeek (36.1% in 1998; 24.6%
in 2001) and WebCrawler (19.6% in 1998;
11.2% in 2001). The following three search
engines that were either not on the 1998
survey or not available in 1998 were used
in 2001 by more than 20 percent of the re-
spondents: Ask Jeeves (31.2%), Netscape
(29.4%), and Google (25.8%).
Internet Search Training
Table 12 shows the opinions of respon-
dents concerning which persons or
agencies within the university should
be responsible for teaching how to
search the Internet effectively. The re-
sponses included:
• academic college (39.4% in 1998;
32.2% in 2001);
• university computing services
(44.5% in 1998; 44.2% in 2001);
• university librarian faculty
(18.7% in 1998; 28.4% in 2001);
• other (15.8% in 1998; 16.4% in
2001).
Table 13 identifies which Internet train-
ing courses the respondents would likely
attend if the courses were offered by the
librarian faculty. Respondents indicated
that they were most interested in learn-
ing advanced Internet searching skills in
both 1998 (55.2%) and 2001 (52.3%). The
percentage for basic Internet search train-
ing dropped from 44.1 percent in 1998 to
21.0 percent in 2001. The percentage for
academic subscription database training
increased from 24.4 percent in 1998 to 32.9
percent in 2001. The percentages for the
training of gateway Internet resource list-
ings remained more or less the same
(30.5% in 1998; 29.8% in 2001).
Discussion
In the report of the 1998 survey, the au-
thor discussed three challenges faced by
Seton Hall University librarians in view
of the 1998 data.11 This section discusses
how these three challenges have been met
in comparison with the 2001 survey data.
The Challenge Met with Visible Improve-
ments
The 1998 survey revealed that the main
challenge for Seton Hall University librar-
ians appeared to be how to raise the us-
ers’ level of satisfaction when providing
information services through the Internet.
This challenge has been met with visible
improvements in the categories of high
level of satisfaction and high-speed
searching for satisfactory results. In 1998,
only 7.8 percent of the respondents indi-
cated a high level of satisfaction with the
TABLE 9
Percent of Respondents� Opinions
on the Library�s Home Pages in
Facilitating Searching of the Internet
1998 2001
n = 786 n = 581
Very helpful 5.3% 11.2%
Helpful 19.2% 32.9%
Somewhat helpful 13.7% 23.8%
Not helpful 2.5% 3.8%
The need for subscription database
training increased from 24.4 percent
in 1998 to 32.9 percent in 2001.
A Comparative Study 257
Internet; the percentage more than
doubled to 18.1 percent in 2001. In 1998,
only 5 percent of the respondents were
able to obtain satisfactory results within
five to ten minutes; again, the percent-
age doubled in 2001 to 10 percent. How-
ever, the percentages in the middle and
low levels of satisfaction and eleven
minutes or more for satisfactory search
results remained more or less the same
with a slight change toward a positive
direction.
The Internet continued to be an im-
portant source of information for aca-
demic studies as evidenced by its daily
use, which increased from 40.2 percent
in 1998 to 84.3 percent in 2001. About
10 percent of the respondents self-iden-
tified as having seldom or never used
the Internet in 1998; the percentage di-
minished to 0.3 percent in 2001.
The university library home pages
have been accepted and used by more
and more respondents. The percentage
of respondents using the library’s home
pages () in-
creased from 41.3 percent in 1998 to 71.1
percent in 2001. The percentage of re-
spondents’ opinions on the library’s
home pages in terms of facilitating
Internet search in the category of “very
helpful” increased from 5.3 percent in
1998 to 11.2 percent in 2001; the percent-
ages in the categories of “helpful” and
“somewhat helpful” increased from
32.9 percent in 1998 to 56.7 percent in
2001.
The Challenge Met with
Moderate Improvement
The percentage of respon-
dents who believed that
responsibility for teaching
Internet searching belongs
to university computing
services and/or to indi-
vidual academic colleges
remained more or less the
same, around 40 percent in
both 1998 and 2001. The
percentage of respondents
who believed that respon-
sibility for teaching
Internet searching belongs to university
librarian faculty increased from 18.7 per-
cent in 1998 to 28.4 percent in 2001. This
TABLE 10
Percent of Respondents Searching the Internet
in Different Ways
1998 2001
n = 786 n = 581
Very helpful 5.3% 11.2%
Use Internet search engines 83.6% 84.7%
Type in a Web address directly 63.9% 69.5%
Use categorized gateway Internet
resource listings 17.8% 33.6%
Use subscription databases 12.1% 41.7%
Other 2.3% 3.6%
TABLE 11
Percent of Respondents� Favorite
Internet Search Engines
1998 2001
n = 786 n = 581
About 5.2%
Allthesites 1.5%
Alta Vista 27.6% 34.6%
Ask Jeeves 31.2%
Business Web 1.5%
DrKoop 2.1%
Economic Indicator 0.7%
Excite 27.7% 33.2%
FindLaw 4.6%
Google 25.8%
Hotbot 3.8% 17.6%
Inference Find 1.2%
InfoSeek 36.1% 24.6%
Look Smart 6.2%
Lycos 17.0% 33.9%
Magellan 4.5%
MetaCrawler 2.3% 7.4%
Netscape 29.4%
Northern Light 6.9%
RefDesk 2.1%
Skworm 0.5%
Snap 3.4%
WebCrawler 19.6% 11.2%
Yahoo 80.5% 69.7%
Other 3.2% 11.2%
258 College & Research Libraries May 2002
may be the result of the librarian faculty’s
continuing discussions within the aca-
demic community to make sure that this
area of teaching is their responsibility.
The Challenge Met with No Improvement
The three major problems that did not
improve or “worsened” for respondents
when searching the Internet were as fol-
lows: do not find information needed
(49.2% in 1998; 54.7% in 2001), no full-text
information can be cited for academic
study and/or research (43.8% in 1998;
52.8% in 2001), and too many hits (38.4%
in 1998; 50.1% in 2001). These percentages
of the 2001 survey are puzzling. With the
increase in the library’s subscription to
Web-based periodical and newspaper da-
tabases, one would speculate that the per-
centage of respondents who may encoun-
ter these problems would be lower in 2001
than in 1998. However, the training needs
of the respondents may provide some
clues. The need for subscription database
training increased from 24.4
percent in 1998 to 32.9 per-
cent in 2001. This may mean
that librarians need to focus
their training on subscription
databases, advanced Internet
search skills, and useful cur-
ricula-related Web resources.
Basic Internet search skills
are not in demand because
the surveys show that the
percentage dropped from
44.1 percent in 1998 to 21.0
percent in 2001. The librar-
ians need to keep up with
their professional training to
improve their own Internet
search skills in order to main-
tain an edge in the opinions
of students, faculty, admin-
istrators, and staff as Web-
based information search
specialists.
Conclusions
The comparison of the sur-
vey data between 1998 and
2001 shows that the Internet
continues to be an important component
of library services in today and
tomorrow’s library. The majority of the
respondents used the Internet on a daily
basis in 2001, as opposed to less than half
the respondents in 1998. The strategies
of reallocating library budget resources
and improving the design of the univer-
sity library home pages collectively may
have worked in increasing the library us-
ers’ levels of satisfaction and in attract-
ing more library users to use the library
home pages. The librarians’ proactive ini-
tiatives with the classroom teaching fac-
ulty also may have worked to improve
the respondents’ opinions of the librar-
ians’ role in teaching Internet searching.
The survey data show that the
librarian’s major challenge in the new
century remains that of how to help li-
brary users find what they are looking for
through the Internet. Library users need
to know what subscription academic da-
tabases and what high-quality free Web
TABLE 12
Percent of Respondents� Opinions on Who
Should Be Responsible for Teaching Them How
to Search the Internet Effectively
1998 2001
n = 786 n = 581
Academic college 39.4% 32.2%
University computing services 44.5% 44.2%
University librarian faculty 18.7% 28.4%
Other 15.8% 16.4%
TABLE 13
Percent of Respondents Who Would Likely
Attend Internet Training Courses Offered by the
University Librarian Faculty
1998 2001
n = 786 n = 581
Academic college 39.4% 32.2%
Basic Internet searching 44.1% 21.0%
Advanced Internet searching 55.2% 52.3%
Gateway Internet resource listings 30.5% 29.8%
Subscription databases 24.4% 32.9%
A Comparative Study 259
resources are available for them to search
and how to search these databases and
Web resources effectively and efficiently.
This suggests that librarians need to fo-
cus on opportunities for providing train-
ing on subscription academic databases,
advanced Internet search skills, and use-
ful curricular Web resources.
Notes
1. Mary J. Lynch, Electronic Services in Academic Libraries: ALA Survey Report (Chicago: ALA,
1996).
2. Mick O’Leary, “New Academic Information Model Bypasses Libraries,” Online 25 (July/
Aug. 2001): 72–74.
3. Mark Y. Herring, “10 Reasons Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library,” American
Libraries 32, no. 4 (Apr. 2001): 76–78.
4. Xue-Ming Bao, “Challenges and Opportunities: A Report of the 1998 Library Survey of
Internet Users at Seton Hall University,” College & Research Libraries 59 (Nov. 1998): 535–43.
5. Helen M. Gothberg, “Library Survey: A Research Methodology Rediscovered,” College &
Research Libraries 51 (Nov. 1996): 553–59. In this article, Gothberg stated: “Most descriptive sur-
veys describe one library or a group of libraries within a system or even a state. Such surveys
deal with quantitative data and are used to compare with similar statistics from the previous
year, or other libraries. They may also seek opinions and/or demographic data about users.”
6. Ibid.
7. John Neter, William Wasserman, and G.A. Whitemore, Applied Statistics (Boston: Allyn
and Bacon, 1982), 188.
8. Arthur W. Häfner, Descriptive Statistical Techniques for Librarians, 2nd ed. (Chicago: ALA,
1998), 6.
9. http://pirate.shu.edu/~baoxuemi/SHU_library_survey_2001_cover_letter.htm. Accessed
on Nov. 25, 2001.
10. Floyd J. Fowler Jr., Survey Research Methods (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1993), 40–41.
11. Bao, “Challenges and Opportunities.”