Σύγχρονες υπηρεσίες ακαδημαϊκών βιβλιοθηκών : έχουμε πετύχει τους στόχους μας;

The Greek academic libraries in the context of EU and State funding developed a series of electronic services aimed at satisfying the needs of the academic community. By way of example we can mention the Institutional Repositories, Virtual Learning Environments and Digital Libraries. These services, having passed through the development and pilot application stages, are now available and can be used by members of the academic community. Nevertheless, the fact that the services are available for use does not in itself suffice for the ambitious efforts of the libraries to be considered an overall success. Now that the new services are ready, it is considered necessary for research to be conducted in order to assess their level of penetration in the structure and operations of the educational institutes and to evaluate the need for the development of strategies aiming at their promotion within the institutes. This work presents the results of one such assessment survey in the case of the library of a technological educational institute. The subjects of the survey, which was carried out during the winter semester of the academic year 2007-2008, were 1021 students from all departments of the Institute who were in their 5th, 6th and 7th semesters. The data was gathered using questionnaires. Processing and analysis of the data indicated that a significant proportion of the students did not know about the services offered, and that the level of use of those students who did know about them was not satisfactory. For example, it was reported that 41.1% of the respondents did not know about the Institutional Repository, and a similar percentage, despite knowing about this service, stated that they never used it. Similar percentages were noted for the Virtual Learning Environment – 36.3% did not know the service and 35.6% did not use it. In addition to presenting the survey conducted, this paper also contains a promotional plan for the library services. In the initial phase, the data that emerged from the research in relation to the needs and wants of users is evaluated. Subsequently the promotional strategies aimed at establishing communication between the library and its users are chosen.