Meeting the Needs of Student Users in Academic Libraries

Reaching Across the Great Divide

Michele Crump, LeiLani Freund

• Publisher: Chandos Publishing
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781780633237
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Information Management
• Index: Business

Meeting the Needs of Student Users in Academic Libraries surveys and evaluates the current practice of learning commons and research services within the academic library community in order to determine if these learning spaces are functioning as intended. To evaluate their findings, the authors examine the measurement tools that libraries have used to evaluate usage and satisfaction, including contemporary anthropological studies that provide a more detailed view of the student's approach to research. The book takes a candid look at these redesigns and asks if improvements have lived up to expectations of increased service and user satisfaction. Are librarians using these findings to inform the evolution and implementation of new service models, or have they simply put a new shade of lipstick on the pig?

• Takes an honest look at learning commons in academic libraries and discusses what is working and what is not
• Explores behind the statistics as to why users come to the library; does the librarians' concept of 'the library as place' match user perception?
• Looks at the anthropology of the user to gauge satisfaction with the services and space provided by the library via recent survey findings

1

The divide as we see it

Michele J. Crump and LeiLani S. Freund

Abstract:

The book is aimed at academic librarians and administrators primarily but will be applicable to all levels of library staff and library and information science students. The introduction is a white paper on what the authors’ assumptions are about librarians and library users. The authors work from the following premises: libraries are moving to the digital model; the traditional library catalog is dead; mobility is king; students should be able to access the information anywhere. In the context of this environment, libraries need to look to the user-centric movement and beyond to guide our progress forward.

Key words

information commons (IC)

learning commons

librarian perceptions

librarian survey

student perceptions

user experience

user survey

“It’s gone away in yesterday

Now I find myself on the mountainside

Where the rivers change direction

Across the Great Divide

– K. Wolf (1980) Across the Great Divide”

Introduction

We have opened our doors for service and they are coming in! We have full-service working computers, emerging technologies to try, printers for class assignments, media software for projects, comfortable chairs, and lattes too. Library gate counts are on the rise as students lounge in the ambience of renovated or brand new spaces that librarians have named information or learning commons.¹ Librarians at the reference desk see students collaborating with other students, communicating with their instructors by email or online course software, and even calling their parents, yet completely by passing the reference librarian who stands ready to facilitate the research process and point the way to free, reliable library resources. Are we or are we not a part of the collective academic process? Library statistical reports and surveys muddy the waters, often conflicting with one another or with our local results. What are we to believe, what should guide our progress forward?

The 2010 Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) survey Perceptions of Libraries: Context and Community makes us feel better with its report that “Library use is the lifestyle activity with the largest increase for all Americans” (De Rosa et al., 2011, p. 26) This is particularly true of the economically vulnerable. However, our confusion returns when we read further that 78 percent of the college students surveyed believe that the librarian adds value to the search process but they overwhelmingly (82 percent) use search engines like Google and Wikipedia to start their research. All the library activities that students engage in are down from a very similar OCLC 2005 survey. For example, using online databases is down 13 percent and using assistance for research is down 20 percent even though 65 percent of students acknowledge that Wikipedia is less trustworthy than library sources. Moreover, library researchers have reported that the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) statistics show a steady decline in reference questions asked from 1991 to the present. Many, though not all, individual library case studies have cited similar figures. The OCLC study gives us some interesting facts about virtual library resources as well. In 2005, only 1 percent of all participants surveyed (that is all ages and all types of library users) visited their library’s website first when starting their research. In 2010, not a single person out of the 2229 respondents began their information search on a library website (De Rosa et al., 2011, p. 32). Academic students in particular eventually made their way to the website or were told to go there and some said they would go back to it, but not one started there. This statistic should make librarians think very hard about the design of our home pages or portals to online library resources and where we are placing our efforts.

We hoped that the information commons (IC) would revitalize our libraries and indeed they have, in many ways. Libraries frequently report a significant and sometimes astonishing upturn in gate counts after establishment of an IC. We know that the students love our spaces and that the “library as place” is alive and filled with a renewed energy that is palpable. So why is the library journal literature rife with articles that express our insecurity with our role in the digital world?

There are probably as many IC configurations as there are libraries, but they all share the common theme of providing resources that support the users’ needs from start to finish of their academic projects and papers. With the advent of the IC, libraries moved from providing and storing the information to providing access and assistance in the gathering, organization, and packaging of information. Needless to say, this has resulted in a profound effect on the library staff operating in this multi-dimensional and highly technical environment and has also called into question services that have existed for several decades. It is no wonder that librarians who have been in the business for 20 or 30 or even as little as 10 years are feeling uncomfortable. In the context of the IC we begin to think about how much our users need or want us to be there. When questions do come in, they are often of a routine directional or technical nature. The directional questions could be answered by a student assistant or volunteer. The technical questions can be downright scary. It’s reassuring to read the OCLC report that tells us we are trusted and valued and especially needed in trying economic times, but for every comforting statistic, we see several others that directly contradict the notion that we have a purpose and instead scream our obsolescence. How comforting is it to pick up a copy of USA Today and read a headline that blurts out the bad news (as if we didn’t know) “Study: College students rarely use librarians’ expertise”? (Kolowich, 2011). To add insult to injury, we can read the whole paper, because we have plenty of time to read while sitting at the reference desk on the lonely 10 am shift! What is going on here? If they trust us so much, why aren’t they lining up at the desk?

One of the inspirations for this book comes from the intriguing and insightful book by Hamish McRae (2010) entitled What Works: Success in Stressful Times. McRae is a leading European futurist, economist, and associate editor of The Independent. A commentator on Google and other search engines, he has addressed library audiences such as the Research Libraries Group. McRae’s book looks at organizations and communities that simply work. As he notes in the introduction to his book, “It is about success in good times and bad” (McRae, 2010, p. ix). After looking at a number of case studies as diverse as Harvard University, IKEA, and the Edinburgh Festival, McRae lists ten lessons to be drawn from these success stories.² He goes on to say that to work really well, organizations absolutely need to combine the final two lessons in his list: (1) Having a deep-seated sense of mission; and (2) Being acutely sensitive to the market:

One without the other does not work. A plan or project that operates with a mission but fails to listen to the market may carry on for a while on a tide of early enthusiasm. But it cannot be sustained. Pure market-driven endeavours can carry on for much longer … But add the sense of mission and you get something much more: a success that can be replicated and scaled. (McRae, 2010, pp. xi-xii)

In the context of the modern library/IC and the economic realities of the recession and the twenty-first century, librarians need more than ever to look at “what works” in our libraries and remove the legacy services that do not. In this spirit, the authors have made a few assumptions about the direction libraries need to take to more proactively meet users’ needs and maintain vital services. The reader may not agree with these assumptions and indeed we may ruffle more than a few feathers, but without a candid discussion of what does not work, we cannot have a meaningful discussion of what does. Our assumptions include the following:

Librarians make assumptions about what students need, but often without asking them. One of the key mistakes we make is generalizing; for example, characterizing the Millennials as digital natives and ignoring the gaps in their comfort level with the technology and information science.

The Internet has created an environment in which our users expect information on their own terms, anywhere and anytime. Libraries must compete with other information providers to deliver this level of service.

As of this moment, the patron still needs librarians but often does not know it and this need lessens with each passing day. We should not delude ourselves; the likelihood of becoming irrelevant is real.

The library catalog in the traditional sense is dead. Adding more features to it or creating a web-like overlay does not revive it. Libraries need to work with library software developers to enhance true discoverability.

The library website is on life support.

Mobile technology is key, but maybe not quite as we expected. The smartphone may not have the utility we thought it would for library services, but other mobile technology will. The future is in mobility.

Most libraries are undergoing serious to severe budget cuts and it is unlikely for the fore...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• List of figures and tables
• Acknowledgements
• About the authors and contributors
• Chapter 1: The divide as we see it
• Chapter 2: Services in the information commons
• Chapter 3: A post-occupancy look at library building renovations: meeting the needs of the twenty-first century users
• Chapter 4: Assess to cultivate your own library
• Chapter 5: Millennials and technology: putting suppositions to the test in an academic library
• Chapter 6: We asked and they told us: survey × 2
• Chapter 7: Reaching across the divide
• Appendix A: Library user survey
• Appendix B: Library staff survey
• Index