The 2018 Softlink UK & Europe School Library Survey Report has been released

About the UK and Europe Softlink School library Survey

The School Library Survey, conducted by Softlink on behalf of the school library sector, examines key trends and issues impacting school libraries.

The UK Survey was first launched in 2015 and extended to include Europe in 2018.

This report provides an analysis of the survey findings including library staffing, library usage, support and engagement, library services, school library objectives, emerging trends, and eResource collections.

Download the full report

Key findings Summary

Key findings from the 2018 Survey include:

• 67% of respondents feel their library is not adequately resourced including staffing and budget.
• 85% of respondents indicated no change to their staffing levels from the previous year, 2% indicated it had increased, and 13% indicated a decrease.
• 25% indicated a high or very high of support from the senior leadership team, 42% of respondents indicated a moderate level of support, 33% indicated a low or very low level of support.
• 22% indicated a high or very high level of teacher engagement in the library, 47% of schools indicated a moderate level of teacher engagement, 31% indicated a low or very low level of teacher engagment.
• 43% of respondents indicated that they include a percentage of eBooks in their collection.
• 54% of of respondents indicated that they include a percentage of eResources - subscription databases in their collection.

Open-ended questions provided an opportunity for respondents to share comments about the library and their role. Recurring themes that have been included in the report are:

• The library space
• Integration
• Student use of the library
• Raising the library profile

Respondents were also asked to share ideas for promoting the library, the services it provides or the role and skills of the school library staff. These ideas have been collated in the feature, School libraries share ideas for promoting the library, available on our resources page.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who participated in the survey, we appreciate your ongoing support and look forward to continuing to work together to build stronger school libraries.

*The 2018 Softlink UK and Europe School Library Survey was conducted between 20 Nov 2018 and 10 Dec 2018. To download the full report, visit our resources page