I’m considering putting together an annotated bibliography about how students and/or faculty make use of academic libraries. If you are aware of any reports on research on this topic please contact me at [log in to unmask]
Here are a few examples of the kinds of items I am looking for:
* In 2007 ACRL published a report on the University of Rochester’s "Studying Students" project (see: http://bit.ly/gCUBxx). This project employed a team of librarians and anthropologists in an attempt to discern how undergraduate students gathered information while preparing research papers. Here’s one of the more interesting findings of this project:
"...library staff undertook a reference desk survey to understand changing patterns at the reference desk and followed that up with a set of brief interviews in the student union...The survey and interviews revealed that few students understand what reference librarians do and how reference librarians can help them, nor do they consider asking for the help reference librarians are trained to provide. Rather, students tend to feel that they are good at finding their own resources and answering their own questions. If they need expert advice, they turn either to their instructors or, surprisingly, to their families, whom they contact by phone or e-mail."
* More recently a group of Illinois academic libraries, inspired by the Rochester project, did another study of undergraduate information-seeking behavior (see: http://bit.ly/a8HZVZ). This study also employed a team of librarians and anthropologists. Their 2010 report had a finding that echoed the Rochester finding I quoted above:
"While the majority of students we interviewed struggled with one or more aspects of academic research, very few students sought help from a librarian. In fact, one of the most striking aspects of the ERIAL study was the near-invisibility of librarians within the academic worldview of students."
* OCLC has also produced a couple of reports about college students’ use of libraries:
