Measuring and Applying Data about Users in the Seton Hall Library

We present data on how faculty and students at Seton Hall University use scholarly articles and books, how the library can present its findings to stakeholders, and how librarians can learn from these findings to better meet user needs. The data were gathered using questionnaire surveys of university faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students as part of the IMLS Lib-Value project and based on Tenopir and King Studies conducted since 1977. Many questions used the critical incident of the last article and book reading to enable analysis of the characteristics of readings, in addition to characteristics of readers. Seton Hall’s ejournal collection is vital to its users, supporting faculty research and teaching and student coursework. However, high use of books from non-library sources suggests some deficiencies in the collection. Findings show an opportunity to brand library material to clearly distinguish it from what is perceived as ‘free on the web,’ examine use of both print and e-books, and work with professors to increase student awareness and use of library resources.