GEOSCIENCE INFORMATION SERVICES AND RESOURCES: WHAT DO RESEARCHERS REALLY WANT?

In 2018, the American Geosciences Institute surveyed the geoscience user community to examine the current awareness, accessibility and satisfaction with geoscience information resources and services. The survey, supported by the USGS, was undertaken to assist in identifying which resources and services are most valued by researchers both through traditional in-person visits to libraries and through use of online digital resources. The survey consisted of two parts. The first part was a short, four-question ‘flash survey’ designed to gauge participant familiarity with accession of geoscience information and to identify which modes of access were most frequently used. The ‘flash survey’ was also used to identify willing participants for the second more-detailed survey of twenty questions. The detailed survey considered familiarity with certain information services, resources and assets and identified modes of user access. In addition, users were asked to indicate which services they considered of most value in their research and which resources or services were seldom used. 509 individuals completed the detailed survey which included a short answer section. The respondents came from a broad spectrum of geoscientists with one-third drawn from Academia and a quarter from the Environmental Services and Mining sectors. Among the wealth of interesting results, government reports were identified as the most frequently used information resource and almost three-quarters of the respondents indicated that the most critical physical resources were maps. The responses to the survey provide food for thought for geoscience libraries facing changes to either resources or services.