Format Preferences

Participants were asked about their preferences for collection materials and formats.

>>> Learn about additional format preferences of instructors and students.

Participants who use collections were asked “When using materials in your preferred subject area(s), what are your format preferences?” Almost 50% stated a preference for electronic formats, while nearly 14% preferred print. Around 22% said it depends what they are reading, 14% liked both equally, and 3% had no preference.

Preferences for electronic or print format among those who reported using the collections:

• Electronic materials 46.7%

• Depends on what I’m reading   21.7%

• Like both equally 14.4%

• Print materials 13.8%

• No preference 3.4%

Respondents were also asked which kinds of materials, independent of electronic/print format, they used. This question was asked in two sets, but responses are combined to the list below. (As staff reported use of the library to a lesser degree, they have been removed from the baseline when calculating these percentages.)

Use of Library Materials (calculated without staff responses):

• Books 62%

• Journals 63%

• Databases 59%

• Film/Video 17%

• Newspapers 15%

• Data sets 14%

• Magazines 12%

• Spec Coll 9%

• Maps/Atlases 8%

• Govt info 7%

• CVGA 6%

• Comics/Graphic Novels 6%

• Music scores 5%

• Artists’ books 4%

• Children's books 4%

Comments about Collection Materials

Respondents who use library collections were invited to share ideas about “how the materials and tools provided by the library could better support needs.” 

This yielded nearly 300 comments, with representative quotes shown below:

• "Please keep buying physical books. I appreciate ILL, but I like it even more when the physical book is available here."

• "Please expand the Libby (Overdrive) audiobooks collection. Please renew the ability for staff to have a library card at the Ann Arbor District Library."

• "More ebook options for checkout beyond 1 day."

• "Would love to see a greater number of audio books available online."

• "I've found it difficult to find the library's online resources in the past, in the sense that it was hard to find the links that I wanted."