Re: Survey of Academic & Research Library Scholarly and Professional Journal Purchasing

["Anthony Watkinson" <anthony.watkinson@btinternet.com>]

On this list we do from time to time get these surveys posted. If 
I am qualified I am always tempted to take part because I do want 
to see the results (without paying)

I have a question for those posting this one. Those who take part 
get a PDF of the results.

The survey company state: "The report will enable your library to 
compare its instructional technologies, and management practices 
with those of similar institutions in the USA, Canada, Europe, 
Japan and other countries and regions".

However surely the results will not be much use as guidance for 
practice unless the number of responses are compared with the 
number of "similar institutions" in the different regions? How 
will this company ensure the representativeness of its sample 
and, if it does not or cannot, what will the use of the survey 
be?

I appreciate that this question make show naivety and would 
appreciate comments from statisticians as well as a reply from 
Primary Research Group

Anthony


----- Original Message -----
From: <primarydat@aol.com>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 10:50 PM
Subject: Survey of Academic & Research Library Scholarly and Professional
Journal Purchasing

> Primary Research Group (www.primaryresearch.com) is planning to 
> publish a survey of academic & research library purchasing 
> practices for scholarly and professional journals. Participants 
> are listed in an appendix but responses are not identified by 
> name and data is presented only in aggregate categories. The 
> survey is open to academic & research libraries of all nations. 
> Participants receive a free PDF copy of the estimated 100-page 
> report. Data is broken out by type and size of institution for 
> easier benchmarking.  To take the 45-question survey, follow 
> the link below:
>
> http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=WeBI_2fRzdxDaqlGKsrF3vuA_3d_3d
>
> James Moses
> Primary Research Group, Inc.
> Tel. 212-736-2316
> Fax 212-412-9097