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Ithaka is a U.S.-based non-profit organization dedicated to helping the academic community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways. Its first survey on this topic was performed in 2000, and is carried out every three years ever since. This latest survey was carried out in the fall of 2009 on 35.184 faculty of universities and colleges in the United States.

The survey focused on three major issues:
1. information discovery and the evolving role of the library
2. the format transition for scholarly works
3. scholarly communications

With respect to the first topic, the survey shows that faculty research practices have drastically changed as a result of the increased use of the internet and digital technologies. Faculty now begin their research from discipline-specific online resources and not the library's portal or from a visit to the library building. Thus, their attitudes regarding the role of the library are shifting accordingly: the library as a physical location and the role of its online portal for launching research are steadily decreasing in significance for faculty. The most significant perceived role of the library is that of the ‘buyer' of access to specialized scientific resources, such as journals, books and other scholarly resources that it pays for and manages.

The role of the library as an archive is also considered important, but comes second, while it is deemed as less significant as a support for research and teaching. The gradual disintermediation of the library from the discovery process suggests that it risks losing one of its core functional areas.

At the same time, libraries also transform, paying special attention to the development of specialized services in order better to support faculty according to the needs of their particular fields. For some, the library of the 21st century is a portal that provides a range of services to support university needs for research, teaching and learning.

With respect to the format transition in scholarly works, the study shows that faculty are increasingly comfortable relying exclusively on digital sources in carrying out and publishing their research. More specifically, the most significant changes can be observed with journals, which are gradually published as e-journals only. Similarly, it is expected that access to the back issues of journals with be digital-only in the future. E-books are less significant for faculty in the U.S. but are still considered an important research tool, and their preservation is thus considered important.

All of the above create new opportunities and challenges for the management and preservation of digital resources to libraries, as well as new business models for publishers.

In the domain of scholarly communications the study finds that despite the potential of new online communications channels -such as repositories, blogs, Twitter- faculty strongly prefer traditional channels in communicating research, while their conservative attitudes in this issue essentially prevent systemic change. At this point, the role that information services organizations may be crucial.

Disciplinary differences in carrying out and communicating research are the reason for which the survey discovered differences in attitudes among faculty Despite the fact that digital technologies have not penetrated as deeply in the Humanities, it is estimated that the Humanities will follow the same path opened by the sciences in digital research since resources in the Humanities are increasingly becoming available in digital formats. Information services institutions will need to develop closer relationships with faculty in order to meet their needs and secure their role in the 21st century.