Patterns of Student Use of a College Library

Abstract

A tabulation was made of a sampling of book charges and their bor-rowers' class, sex, and grade point average. During a month-long peri-od almost two out of three students borrowed no books. Freshmen borrowed more books per capita than did . their elders. There was direct correlation between grade point average and the number of books charged. Slightly more books were charged per capita to women than to men. The implications of the high incidence of nonuse of libraries upon staffing are discussed. IN THE SPRING of 1962 a thirty-day study was made to determine the broad pattern of student use of the library at Eastern Illinois University. The data collected at that time were so disturbing-indicating that 63 per cent of the student body bor-rowed NO books during the period-that another similar survey was undertaken in the fall quarter of 1963. Both studies are reflected in this report, although to conserve space only the detailed break-down from the earlier quarter on such matters as academic class, achievement, and sex is reported here. The method used for both studies was as follows: all call slips for books from the closed stack were saved for a period of thirty days in the middle of each quarter. The call slips were arranged by student identification number. The uni-versity machine records department sup-plied the library with a complete list of students, arranged by student identifica-tion number. This list also included each Mr. Barkey is Librarian at Texas College of Arts and Industries.