The questionnaires were designed by the librarians in charge of the project, Phil Cronenwett and Ann McHugo, following consultation with members of the library staff and a review of questionnaires used by libraries at other institutions in the Consortium on Financing Higher Education. Drafts were tested with students and faculty prior to administration.
Invitations to participate were sent to random sample of 1,201 undergraduates, 1,206 graduate and professional students, and 996 faculty.
Students were eligible for a prize drawing ($20 gift certificate to the Dartmouth Bookstore or a $20 copy card) as an incentive to respond; faculty were not offered any incentives.
The surveys were administered during the first two weeks of May. Students were invited to participate exclusively via an e-mail announcement that directed them to a Web-based questionnaire. A single e-mail reminder was sent one week after the initial mailing. E-mail announcements and letters were sent to faculty in their campus mail boxes. Faculty were given the option of requesting a printed version of the questionnaire. Thirty-six faculty submitted a completed printed questionnaire. Several faculty complained that they were unable to access the Web survey. Conflicts between Unix operating systems and Kerberos authentication are known to have caused some of the problems.
When the Web versions of the library survey were created, the following items were inadvertently left off: Student - question 1_2 (which library do you use most often?), question 2I-K (to work on assignments, to meet fellow students, for lectures, seminars, classes), question 5D (library Web pages); Faculty - question 1_2 (which library do you use most often?), question 5D (library Web pages).
Tables 1 & 2 show the numbers of responses and response rates for each constituency and the groups within each.
Faculty
| Divisions | Sampled | Responded |
Response Rate |
|
Arts & Sciences |
|||
| Humanities | 198 | 48 | 24% |
| Sciences | 171 | 47 | 27% |
| Social Sciences | 129 | 42 | 33% |
| Academic Programs | 20 | 5 | 25% |
| DMS | 360 | 82 | 23% |
| Thayer | 49 | 11 | 22% |
| Tuck | 42 | 9 | 21% |
| Other* | 27 | 9 | 33% |
| Total | 996 | 253 | 25% |
Notes: * "Other" includes all faculty members who could not be identified as a member of the Humanities, Sciences, Social Sciences, Academic Programs, DMS, Thayer, or Tuck.
Students
| Groups | Sampled | Responded |
Response Rate |
| First-year | 318 | 100 | 31% |
| Upper Class | 883 | 269 | 30% |
| A & S Graduate | 425 | 45 | 11% |
| DMS | 271 | 128 | 47% |
| Thayer | 121 | 35 | 29% |
| Tuck | 369 | 84 | 23% |
| Unknown* | 20 | 42 | |
| Total | 2,407 | 703 | 29% |
Notes: * "Unknown" includes students who either could not be identified as a respondent from one of the six groups.