Yes, the experience is for the ship that finds the log books.

Re upgrading to a usable ship, that depends on what hull sizes you like to build. You can always make a one-off design to upgrade a given surveyor if it builds up so much experience that you want it in combat.

IMO, there are enough other benefits to anomoly-hunting that your survey ships should be designed with surveying in mind (for me, that means cheap but still fairly fast with some life support).

  

Thankx,

Prof.