The report presents detailed data from a survey of 1,065 participants drawn from more than 80 US colleges and universities about whether, how and how often they use their academic library website. The study also presents data on how many students use library supplied databases from remote locations and presents detailed information on how students evaluate the training they have received in using the academic library website. The study also presents data on how easy students feel it is to find information through the college website.
Data in the report is presented in the aggregate and then broken out separately for sixteen different variables including but not limited to: college grades, gender, income level, year of college standing, SAT/ACT scores, regional origin, age, sexual orientation, race & ethnicity, college major and other personal variables, and by Carnegie class, enrollment size and public/private status of the survey participants institutions of higher education.
Just a few of this 53 -page report’s many findings are that:
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12.24% of students from families which earn less than $45,000 per year had never used the library website.
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Approximately 84% of students with SAT scores over 1350 or ACT scores of 30 or above have ever accessed a library database from a remote location.
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Students in engineering, computer science and mathematics and related fields visited the library website much less often than other students, a mean of only 1.12 times in the past week.