Description and highlights of student library survey, Winter 2006

by

Tina Hovekamp

In February 2006, a total of 414 students were surveyed to find out how COCC students use and feel about the Campus Library.  Student survey participants were selected though their enrollment in specific classes.  The instructors of those courses were contacted to solicit their support and schedule class visits accordingly for the completion of the survey.  24 sections were selected among courses representing major disciplines: Social sciences, Computer sciences, Business, Humanities, Sciences, Forestry, Math, Fine Arts, Health and Human Performance.  Students were assured of compete confidentiality.  Along with the questionnaire, students also received the new library bookmark and a raffle ticket for a prize drawing, as a “thank you” for their participation.  Each questionnaire took 5-10 minutes to complete. SurveyPro was used to enter data and prepare descriptive statistics.

The majority of surveyed students were relatively new to the campus (50% had attended COCC for 3 or less terms) and planned to complete an AA degree.  Only 35% of them had taken LIB127 but 85% of them reported that they had used the library within the last two years either remotely or in person.  Of those that did not use the library, 58% said that they did not need to use it for their classes and 25% said that they could find what they needed for classes using the free web.

When students were asked about the importance of different types of sources of information, the majority of them indicated that web resources outside the library were most important to them.  The library and faculty or other students came up second in their rating of importance.

Use of the free web came up as the most frequent activity with use of periodical databases coming up second.  It was interesting to find that 43% of the respondents rarely look for books in our library and 55% of them rarely look for books in other libraries.

Regarding library hours, the majority of students find evening hours and summer hours sufficient; however, a significant percentage of them indicated that weekend hours are not enough.  In their written comments students explicitly requested that the library be open on Saturdays.  A number of them also expressed a desire to have extended library hours during dead week and finals week.  When students were asked what kind of services they need during evenings and weekends, 68% indicated “Place to study”, 62%  indicated “Computer access,” & 40% indicated “Access to library collections” (only 21% indicated “Librarian help with research”).

Finding or requesting books, articles, and AV materials, getting assistance when needed, or using the library website, in general, were rated moderately to very easy to do among users.  Ease of use of the library web site received the highest rating (a combined 69% of students that use the library website indicated that it was easy to very easy to use).  Ease of access to library staff assistance received the second highest rating, while written comments showed that students appreciate the library staff’s helpfulness.

Library staff assistance and the library website also received high marks as far as student satisfaction with different library services.  It’s worth noting that when asked to rate their satisfaction with different library services, a significant number of students reported that they do not have experience with library instruction, remote staff assistance (email/phone), or with getting materials from other libraries through the library's interlibrary loan services.

When asked what the top priorities for the library should be, increased library hours received the highest rating followed by “access to more online journal titles or databases” and improvement in “quality of book collection”.  Offering more art or poetry events in the library was also rated as one of the top library priorities.

Student satisfaction with the library, particularly with overall library services, was quite high.  A combined 72% of students said that they were satisfied to very satisfied with the library in general.