The 160+ page study examines the purchasing plans of academic libraries for key computing infrastructure including plans for fixed workstations, personal computers, laptops, netbooks, tablets and other computing devices. The report helps to answer questions such as: how are libraries and their sometime patrons in college information technology departments allocating funds among different types of computing devices? How has the mobile computing revolution affected plans for fixed workstation purchasing? What percentage of students use their own computers in the library and what percentage of them use the library’s computers? What computer brands do libraries prefer? What are the official and real replacement cycles for computers? How many computers are reserved for staff use alone? To what extent are libraries concentrating computing resources in “information commons” or technology centers? What is the future or such centers? What are their budgets? How much are libraries allocating to computer and information literacy? How effective are these policies.

This report looks closely at the purchasing plans of public libraries for personal computers, workstations, laptops and other computing devices. The study looks at quantities demanded, money spent, brand preferences, and deployment policies, among other issues.

Academic libraries have vastly increased their stock of laptops and other mobile computing devices during the pandemic. Does this represent a fundamental shift in computer use in academic libraries, or merely a temporary shift? This study helps answer this question as well as many others. Such as: What is the stock of laptops maintained by academic libraries? How fast has it grown in recent years? What are the plans for the future? Which brands and capabilities are most favored? What is the stock of tablets and how fast has it grown? What about smartphones, wearable computing and other mobile technology - do they have a role in the library? How much are libraries spending on mobile computing and what are their plans for the future? In addition to the data on numbers and spending on various forms of mobile computing, the report looks at the impact on workstation use and deployment, as well as the terms and conditions for lending out mobile computing to students? How long are the typical lending periods? What is the replacement cycle for laptops? What kind of mobile computing technology is issued to library staff.Just a few of the findings from this comprehensive 80-page report are that: Colleges with fewer than 2000 students provided a mean of 17.75 laptops in the library.The increase in laptop provision in 2021 was much higher for public than private colleges.For private colleges, 69.33% of laptop loans made by libraries to patrons were for one day or less.For community colleges, a mean of 39.88% of staff had a library issued laptop. Community college libraries purchased more tablets than did any other type of college library.For 28.57% of research universities sampled, the replacement cycle for laptops was 3 years. Data in the report was provided by 46 colleges and universities; data is broken out by size and type of college, by tuition level, and for public and private colleges.

The study presents more than 170 tables of data describing how American college students use their library workstations, how long they wait for them, how they view their availability and whether they prefer Macs or PC's. The report also covers use of laptops in the college library, both students own and those provided by the college library. Other issues covered include use of the library's online catalog and out of library access to the library home page. The data in the report is based on a representative sample of more than 400 full time college students in the United States. Data is broken out by 16 criteria including gender, grade point average, major field of study, income level of students and type, size of college, and mean SAT acceptance score of colleges, among other variables.

Academic Library Computer Technology Benchmarks looks at the computer use and purchasing plans of academic libraries worldwide. The report examines plans for workstations, laptops, netbooks, tablet computer, smartphones and other forms of computer technology. The nearly 200 page report also looks at IT staffing levels in libraries, and the relationship between library and general college IT departments, especially in the area of purchasing decision making. In addition to examining the crucial issue of laptops vs fixed workstations, and the report looks at how libraries are responding to the challenges of mobile computing, and how they are teaching patrons to use these and other library technology.

The 80-page study presents the results of a survey of 42 libraries with tablet lending programs or those just about to implement one. The report gives detailed data and commentary on how the programs were organized, financed and implemented and their impact on patrons and libraries. The report helps its readers to answer questions such as: how many tablets do libraries maintain for loan? Which brands do they prefer and which are they planning to purchase in the future? How much have they spent on their tablet lending programs and plan to spend? Do they load their tablets with apps? If so how do they choose them? How many tablets are lost to theft? Or to negligence or accidents? What is the fine for overdue tablets? What is the length of the lending period? What are the circulation figures for tablets? What has been the impact on other library resources, such as a pre-existing laptop lending program? Or on use of the library’s eBook collection? Which libraries do they view as models and what advice can they offer to peers? What services or training are offered to library patrons about how to use the tablets? Data in the report is broken out by library type (public library/public college/private college/special library), by size of library staff, and size of stock of tablet loaned and other variables.