College and Research Libraries


Student Library Habits 
B Y J O H N W E A T H E R F O R D 

T N T H E P A S T T H I R T Y Y E A R S a number of 
statistical studies have appeared point-

ing to various characteristics of the li-
brary habits of college students.1 Gener-
ally speaking, each study has represented 
a different campus. For several reasons, 
few comparisons between universities are 
possible. For one thing, the units of 
measure have not been comparable: here 
one counts charges, there one counts un-
duplicated titles; some count graduates, 
some only freshmen; and so on. 

T h e statistical studies have grown in 
sophistication since the 1930's. At first 
they seemed concerned with the mere 
gross quantity of a student's reading. In-
creasingly, the studies have tended to 
compare various kinds of books or of li-
brary service with various kinds of stu-
dents. T h e most recent and advanced of 

1 Harvie Branscomb, Teaching with Books (Chicago: 
A L A , 1 9 4 0 ) 233 pp. Dr. Branscomb digests his own 
study of two universities and six other studies of the 
1930's, all concerned with the per capita borrowing. 
Douglas Waples et. al., The Library (vol. I V of The 
Evaluation of Higher Institutions. Chicago: University 
of Chicago Press, 1936), pp. 39-60. Waples used regular 
two-weeks loan records over 70- to 100-day periods to 
analyze the types of books borrowed and to make per 
capita comparisons among 233 universities and colleges. 
Although he made no comparisons of these data with 
student characteristics, he hoped that it would be done 
and suggested for this purpose using borrowers' cards 
on which each loan is entered for later comparison with 
whatever student characteristics are looked up in the 
university records. This is the method employed, as we 
shall see, by Julia Thome. 

Floyd Reeves et al., The Liberal Arts College (Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1 9 3 2 ) , 715 pp., had 
conducted_ similar studies of thirty-five Methodist col-
leges, again concerned with per capita borrowing rather 
than correlations with student qualities. 

Frances G. Kemp analyzed the non-reserve books bor-
rowed by freshmen at Sarah Lawrence College in 1939-
1940. She kept a separate charge record for the 125 
girls comprising the class. Frances G. Kemp, "Fresh-
man Reading in a Progressive College" (M. S. Thesis, 
Columbia University, 1 9 4 1 ) . 

Julia Thorne correlated the kind of books borrowed 
with their borrowers' intelligence scores and reading in-
terests, by making a card for each borrower, on which 
each loan was entered when made. The subjects were 
the 181 students at Plymouth Teachers College in 1941-
1942. Julia Thorne, " A n Analysis of Intelligence Rating 
and Reading Interests" ( M . S. Thesis, Columbia Uni-
versity, 1 9 4 6 ) . 

In George Donald Smith, " T h e Nature of Student 
Reading" ( P h . D . Dissertation, University of Chicago, 
1 9 4 6 ) , the loan slips of the freshman class of the Uni-
versity of Chicago were kept so as to distinguish among 
indispensable, optional, and other titles. The names of 

Mr. Weatherford is Assistant Librarian, 
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. 

these has been Patricia Knapp's study of 
Knox College in her College Teaching 
and the College Library, already cited. 
Investigations of this calibre are beyond 
the reach of ordinary library circulation 
records. These correlations are possible 
only if a student and his borrowing are 
linked together in the record. A call-slip 
charging system, such as that used at 
Knox, furnishes this link, for the student 
and his book are tied together on a single 
slip. Cut the paper in two, and there can 
be no correlations at all; leave it whole 
and there can be dozens. 

Yet, as far as method is concerned, the 
work has only begun with the call slip. 
Usually we know from it only the stu-
dent's name and address; some call slips 
ask him for his class, or whether he is an 
undergraduate. Any other traits needed 
for our statistical comparisons have to be 
looked up somewhere, such as in the reg-
istrar's office. People reading the Knox 

the students were then looked up to make comparisons 
with grades and with various aptitude, maturity, trait, 
and other scores in tests given by the university. 

Ann M. Todd based her study on all non-reserve cir-
culation records during October-December 1942, using 
a special call slip for that period, on which the student 
registered whether the transaction was for class work 
or was independent, what his class and school were, 
and whether he was employed. Then in January 1943 
those who had borrowed books during that period were 
sent postal card questionnaires concerning their em-
ployment and other extra-curricular drains on their time; 
54 per cent of the post cards were returned. Ann M. 
Todd, Undergraduate Reading at the University of 
Missouri (M. A . Thesis, University of Chicago, 1 9 4 8 ) . 

Patricia B. Knapp, College Teaching and the College 
Library ( A . C . R . L . Monograph No. 23. Chicago: A L A 
1959) covers many aspects of that subject. The part 
that concerns us here is, of course, her analysis of stu-
dent library use. This was based on all circulation 
records for the spring quarter of 1954 at Knox College. 
These consisted of a special call slip on which the stu-
dent entered not only his name and the identity of the 
book, but the_ course for which the book was borrowed 
(or whether it was for leisure reading). All other in-
formation—-that is, the basis for correlation with student 
characteristics—was looked up in university records 
under each student's name. The student body totalled 
738 at that time. 

S E P T E M B E R 1 9 6 1 369 



L I B R A R Y U S E S U R V E Y 

F E B R U A R Y 1 9 5 9 

:j 
You are one of a sample group of Miami students2 chosen for a study of undergraduate 
use of the university libraries. T r y to answer this questionnaire to the best of your mem-
ory. If you cannot remember at all, just say so. 

Y O U R N A M E W I L L N O T A P P E A R A N Y W H E R E ON T H I S Q U E S T I O N N A I R E , S o Y o u M A Y 

A N S W E R F R A N K L Y . 

1. Circle sex: M F 

2. Circle the class you were in last semester: F SO J SE 

3. What grade point average did you earn last semester? . 

4. What was your major last semester? . , 

5. How many different books did you borrow from the university libraries last 
semester? 

6. How many of these were on reserve in the basement? 

7. How many of the books you borrowed were specifically required reading for one 
of your courses? 

8. How many were connected with your major? 

9. How many were for recreation only? , 

10. How many came from each of the following departmental libraries? 

architecture physics 
biology I M L 
chemistry children's room in 
geology main library building 

other (specify): 

11. How many of the books you charged out did you read more than half through? 

12. How many of them did you not read at all? , , 

study must have been impressed with 738. Wh a t of a university with ten or 
the amount of work it obviously re- thirty times that number? Another dif-
quired. Some of the other studies have ficulty in applying these methods broadly 
involved similar expenditures of labor is that they have required a particular 
and time. kind of charging system. Libraries with 

T h i s expenditure would become a real different systems could not be surveyed 
financial problem in any attempt to con- in this way. 
duct a uniform and detailed study of sev- 2 U n d e r g r a d u a t e s were chosen according to positions 
eral universities. Even if there were no their names occupied on the pages of the student d.rec-

tory. The experimental sample (165 out of 5542 under-
thouerht of a concerted Study, the larger graduates) though large enough for some purposes was 

. . . I I r J I- rr t o ° small for others, leaving us with less information 
universities would find sucn an etrort than might have been wrung from the questionnaire if 
I» I • J J • RR „ U J the sample had been larger or deliberately weighted to forbidding. Knox students numbered make it still more representative. 

370 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S 



Finally, there is a growing tendency to 
put books out on open shelves—open 
reserves, divisional reading rooms, un-
dergraduate libraries, open stacks, and so 
on—so that a growing portion of stu-
dent use of library books will not be re-
flected in the circulation slips. 

It was to meet these problems that an 
experimental survey was conducted at 
Miami University in February 1959. It 
was hoped not only to observe some un-
dergraduate student library habits, but 
also to develop a method that could be 
economically and uniformly applied to 
many universities. T h e r e were two de-
partures from previous practice. One was 
to use a questionnaire instead of charg-
ing records. T h e other was to study a 
sample instead of the entire student 
body. Because the survey depended on 
memory, it was carried out immediately 
at the beginning of the second semester.3 
Although the undergraduates were picked 
at random, the sample necessarily ex-
cluded those who had graduated, failed, 
or otherwise disappeared by the end of 
the semester. 

From this questionnaire, obviously, 
many tabulations can be easily made, 
covering most of the areas of former 
studies and some new ones as well. Here, 
for example, are a few of the local re-

3 Only one or two students failed to answer for fault 
of memory. It seems clear that the reliability of the 
students' memories is high when few books are con-
cerned and decreases as greater numbers of books are 
recorded. Thus a student who says he read 30 books 
may indeed have read 20 or 4 0 ; but a student who says 
he read 8 books cannot be far off. Most students fell 
in the humble and more reliable group. 

suits: (1) Half the students accounted 
for 86 per cent of the books borrowed; 
and a third accounted for three quarters 
of the books borrowed. (2) Generally, 
students read little or much depending 
on how much they had to read, not on 
how much independent reading they did. 
(3) Generally, independence in reading 
went unrewarded by grades. (4) About a 
quarter of the students read over half of 
every book they borrowed, and only 15 
per cent borrowed any books they failed 
to read at all. These examples are given 
not so much for their intrinsic worth as 
to show some points questionnaires can 
bring out especially well. Other observa-
tions were made, and more could be de-
rived from the data. 

Despite the flaws which naturally 
attend a sampling of this kind, the sur-
vey showed that the questionnaire with 
the sample approach is an effective way 
to examine student library use in univer-
sities and colleges of all sizes and kinds. 
It should make it easier to go beyond 
bald circulation figures. 

T h e study would be worse than use-
less if we let ourselves think that num-
bers can adequately express the subtle 
relations between students and their li-
brary. Still, these numbers will, if kept 
in proper perspective, prove valuable 
practical aids in shaping the public serv-
ices and in weighing locally the merits 
of departmental and divisional libraries, 
reserve systems, and undergraduate li-
braries. 

Help Wanted! 
Know of any manuscript collections of Americans who have had dealings with 

Africa? A preliminary bibliography on Americans who have been involved in Africa 
south of the Sahara since 1870, or who have written about that area, is being pre-
pared by Peter Duignan, curator, Africa Collection, T h e Hoover Institution on War, 
Revolution, and Peace, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., and Dr. Robert Collins 
of Williams College. 

Librarians, archivists, or anyone who may know of such manuscript collections, 
are invited to supply Mr. Duignan with the following information: a short biblio-
graphical sketch of the author; his activities in Africa (when, where and why); and 
the location of the papers, their size and scope. 

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