We conducted a survey of the winners of University of California (UC) Berkeley’s Library Prize for Undergraduate Research (2003-2016) to learn about the long-term impact of undergraduate research projects on students, find out what winners gained from the experience, and compare their careers post-graduation with other students. Seventy-four winners responded and reported increased academic engagement during their undergraduate experience, and demonstrated greater than average academic achievement post-graduation. The winners became more confident of their research skills and their aptitude for post-graduate work as a result of winning. More than 3 times as many prize winners went on to graduate school as the typical UC graduate. We also examined usage statistics of winning papers that had been posted to UC’s open access publishing platform and observed that papers continue to be accessed by the general public years after students graduate.

Objective – At the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), researchers compared how well the library collections supported doctoral research in the three related disciplines of education, psychology, and social welfare. The goal of this project was to gather empirical data to answer questions about materials cited in dissertations, including ownership, age of materials and disciplinary usage. Conclusions – The citation analysis, while time-consuming, provided new and important information about the use of the Library’s collections and the level of support the collections afford doctoral students in the three related disciplines of education, psychology and social welfare. This data has informed collections-related decisions including format purchases and fund allocations.

Even the largest research library can no longer build comprehensive collections from all countries and in all languages. The pressure to justify acquisitions can be great on non-English language materials, which are often low-use in North American universities. Determining the research need for these materials, and assessing how well it is being met, is challenging. This paper analyzes impact by examining the language of cited references in doctoral dissertations at Berkeley, 2008-2015.