Survey of Library Services at Engineering News Record’s Top 500 Design Firms: Ten Years Later

ABSTRACT

In October 2004 a survey was mailed to the Engineering News Record’s Top 500 Design firms asking about their information resources and whether there was a degreed librarian on staff. The article resulting from this research (Napp 2004) has been widely cited in the literature in the past decade. In light of the economic crisis in the United States during the decade since 2004, it was decided that a follow-up survey to learn what had changed would be useful. The goal of both surveys was to assess the state of library services in U.S. design firms. The 2004 and the 2014 surveys were mailed to the most current Engineering News Record’s Top 500 Design firms mailing list available. Findings from the current survey help illuminate the information landscape into which engineering students enter after graduation. These findings can and should help inform current information literacy practices of academic engineering librarians.

KEYWORDS:

• Engineering librarianship
• information literacy
• academic libraries
• engineering firms
• academic librarians