A wealth of information and resources is housed beneath the ceiling of Alden Library — a wealth that Ohio University librarians fear students aren’t using.
Students don’t see librarians as people who can help them throughout the research process but rather as people who point them to the right stack of books, according to a study by Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries, and OU librarians tend to agree.
The study shows college students might have used computers since they started walking, but that doesn’t mean they know how to effectively research with them — especially when mentioning the search engine Google.
“We are regularly told by students that they ‘didn’t know’ they could ask for help with their research assignments or make an appointment with a librarian,” said Kelly Broughton, assistant dean for Research and Education.
During the 2009-10 academic year, Athens-campus librarians provided 876 hours of library instruction, working with a total of 9,436 students on research projects.
In the 2010-11 academic year, 3,065,469 books were located in the library and 431,479 were borrowed.
Alden Library’s total budget for the 2010–11 year was $11,726,269, with 21,324 students enrolled at the main campus — averaging about $550 per student, down from an average of $612 per student during the 2006–07 school year.
Students enrolled in OU’s Honors Tutorial College are required to meet with a librarian.
During their first year on campus, HTC students meet with a librarian specializing in their study area to work on a small research project. They also visit OU’s special collections area, said Jeremy Webster, dean of the Honors Tutorial College.
“We encourage students to use the library a lot — each Honors Tutorial College senior thesis has a literature aspect that requires the library,” Webster said.
Broughton said Alden employees hope to reach more students in the future.
“After a consultation with a librarian, they sometimes tell us that they wish they would’ve known earlier in their academic career about this assistance,” Broughton said. “So until we stop hearing comments like that, I’d say, no, we are not reaching enough of the students.”
sf339111@ohiou.edu
