NewsLine readers want to read more physics stories. Image: J. Wise, M. Bradac (Stanford, KIPAC)

For the third time, the NewsLine team conducted a survey this summer. Who are our readers? Are they satisfied with the content? The survey says that you read us more often, that you are generally satisfied with the balance of the subjects and that you are enthusiastic about NewsLine's new thematic issues. However you would like to see more science and expect more stories about the connections between the ILC and other particle physics or accelerator projects.

Always more readers who actually read it
This survey, available in both English and Japanese, was sent to 2206 subscribers. This is an encouraging increase of the number of readers, since you were 1850 to follow us when we conducted the previous survey in 2007. The first result this year is that your read NewsLine more often but that you also take less time to peruse it. About 78.5 percent of you read NewsLine every week (vs. 75.4 percent in 2007) and 67.6 percent of you estimate that you spend at least 5 minutes on it (vs. 86 percent in 2007). The general tone of your comments is also very positive and 67.7 percent of you consider NewsLine "very useful" or "extremely useful." NewsLine is for many of you the best tool to keep an eye on the ILC project and find the most up-to-date information about the on-going researches and political decisions. Eighty point six percent of you follow "read more" links regularly (vs. 71.9 percent in 2007).

Who reads NewsLine? (Click to find out)

Thematic issues: you want more
A new feature in NewsLine is the publication of thematic issues. We received many encouragements, and most of those of you who noticed them also liked them (67.9 percent). Some of you even saw it as a big improvement for the publication. These issues seem to answer well your demands to explain ILC key challenges (read also our electron cloud special), to explain the assets of the ILC to the-man in the street (read also our special issue on the technology benefits of the ILC) or to review the different protagonists taking part in an ILC milestone (read also our detector special about concept detector validation). We will of course continue publishing them.

Always more science
NewsLine readers appreciate the general content, language and length of the stories. The Director's corners, which are essentially written by Barry Barish alternating each month with a member of the Global Design Effort Executive committee or one of the three regional directors, stays the section that raises the most attention from you, 39 percent read it all the time. We received many comments on how to improve these columns. You generally appreciate that their language is not too formal and 89.1 percent think that they cover the major issues of the ILC project. Concerning NewsLine feature stories, if you are globally more and more satisfied with the balance between profiles, detector and accelerator stories, there are still 53.8 percent who would like to see more physics stories.

How much time do you spend reading NewsLine? (Click to find out)	What kind of NewsLine stories would you like to see more (or less)? (Click to find out)
Do you use Twitter? (Click to find out)	Do you read blogs? (Click to find out)

Enlarge NewsLine perspective
Our readers are demanding and if they have enough information on the ILC, they would like to hear more about the links of the ILC with other particle physics experiments, superconducting technology projects and future accelerators. Some of you even suggested we address more astroparticle physics and cosmology. This is not surprising since 60.8 percent of our readers are directly working for the ILC project. An open-minded community among which 40.6 percent would like to read more science news from other labs in NewsLine. (vs 27.13 percent in 2007) and 64.1 percent read regularly the news picked from other sources (vs 46.5 percent in 2007).

Social networks
Most of NewsLine readers are used to reading blogs (67.8% read them all the time or sometimes) but the majority of you do not use or even know social networking sites. You also don't know yet if you would comment on NewsLine stories if the option existed. However, the NewsLine team will investigate the idea of developing social networking tools, since it could be a good way to promote the ILC, particle physics and science in general outside the community.

Help us improve NewsLine
Unfortunately, the figures above are less accurate and representative than we expected since only 8.4 percent of you answered the survey. Is it because you didn't notice it (now that we know you have less time to read NewsLine...)? We hope this survey reflects well the general tendencies and that your silence was more due to the fact that you had nothing more to add since our last survey. Now the survey is closed but you can send us comments all over the year. The ILC communicators would like to thank all of you who took the time to fill out our questionnaire and write interesting and enlightening comments for us. We now need to digest them all and we will do our best to improve the quality of this publication.

-- Perrine Royole-Degieux