The 2019 ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics Annual Survey: Mapping results to the ACRL Standards for Libraries in Higher Education

Abstract

The editorial board of the ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics Survey is pleased to announce response rates have improved over the past five years with 51.6% of U.S. libraries responding in 2019 compared to 48.2% in 2015. Thank you to all libraries that contributed fiscal year 2019 data as well as prior years. Increased participation leads to a more comprehensive understanding of what is happening in academic libraries and generates more robust data for benchmarking and impact analysis. Survey participants receive complimentary access to the summary data via the ACRLMetrics platform. Those who wish to dive deeper into the data can subscribe to ACRLMetrics, an online tool providing access to all ACRL survey data from 1998 to present. Additionally, a print edition of the 2019 data is also available for purchase through the ALA Store. This article highlights some of the key findings from the 2019 survey with respect to the principles in the Standards for Libraries in Higher Education to illustrate how the data can be used by institutions to demonstrate impact and influence. ACRLMetrics also offers a rich body of data for researchers investigating trends across the profession.