Focus on Assessment - May 29, 2012

This past academic year a task force of faculty, administrators, and librarians waas convened in order to consider incorporationg additional features of a Knowledge Commons into the existing services of the John M. Lilley Library at Penn State Erie, the Behrend College. As the group deliberated and discussed possible options for the future, questions about current use patterns by students were raised. For instance, while use of technology has increased, and group study has increased, there was no solid evidence of how much current use could be attributed to these trends. Does group study now dominate our students' library use? How much student use involves a computer? What portion of computer use involves library workstations as opposed to personal laptops?

In order to get a better idea of current practices of students' uses of the library and to better inform our Knowledge Commons conversation, a survey was conducted over a period of seven weeks between February and April. The survey measured threee categories of individual use and three categories of group use: working without a computer, working at a library workstation, and working with a laptop computer. Staff members walked through the three floors of the building and recorded all such uses at 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m., and 9:00 p.m. on weekdays during the seven weeks. Users in the computer lab, language lab, and tutoring center (all located in the library building) were not included in the survey.

The average use for all days and times of day for the six categories, from most common to least common, were: individual student (no computer), 30%; individual student at a library workstation, 24%; group, no computer, 21%; individual with a laptop, 10%; group with a laptop, 9%; group at a library workstation, 5%. Total use by individuals comprise 64% of overall use, with group accounting for 35%. 51% of all users were making use of a computer. When analyzing the use of computers, 60% of all computer use was done at a library workstation and 40% at a laptop. Other findings included the following: 1) There was little variation from one week to the next in terms of the types of use by time of day. For instance, the average number of students working individually with a laptop computer at 11:00 a.m. tended to be constant from one week to the next. 2) There were distinct patterns in usage by time of day. Morning use reveals very little group activity as 84% of all morning use is accounted for by individuals. By 9:00 p.m. this has changed dramatically as individual use drops to 54% of total use. 3) Computer use also varies dramatically by time of day. In the morning, the library workstations get heavy use and there are few personal laptops. In the afternoons and evenings use of library workstations declines by about 30% from morning use while the use of personal laptops increases by more than 100% over the morning results. 4) The average number of students in the building rose during the course of the day with 40 students in the morning, 55 in the afternoon, and 68 in the evening. These findings should help inform future space planning.