When was the last time you went to the library to look for a book? Better question: Have you ever gone to the library to look for a book?
A trip to Hayden Library on any given day will reveal a mass of students rushing to their newsfeed on Facebook rather than a mass of students rushing to a book.
A study recently done by Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg at the University of Washington, titled “How College Students Manage Technology While in the Library During Crunch Time,” details students’ tendencies to use technology in the library more than any other resource, check their various methods of communication often and use the library more as a quiet refuge than to seek out its resources.
The study — which focused on the end of the semester when most students are busiest with impending projects, presentations, and team assignments — found that 81 percent of students were using their various technological devices to stay connected with their friends via Facebook, texting or instant messaging while just 73 percent were using doing assignment-related work and 62 percent were studying.
Next time a trip to the library is in order, take a second to scan the computer screens around the room. Chances are there will be at least a handful of people more interested in what so-and-so posted on their friend’s wall than they are in retaining any information that might help them on an exam.
No one can blame them, of course. Our generation was blessed with so many forms of distraction that it’s a miracle that we get anything done at all.
More than half of the people surveyed in the study were using personal laptop computers rather than library resources. Of the remaining population that used library resources, the majority of them utilized computers and printers rather than library books, research databases, face-to-face reference and online reference, the study said.
This comes as no surprise to our efficiency-is-best trained minds. In a time as valuable as “crunch time,” it seems absurd to waste time trying to find a book that may only further our knowledge of a subject by an insubstantial amount.
Yes, the library offers abundant amounts of information that students should use more often than they do, but libraries also need to adapt to the age of tech-savvy students.
The online databases that are available through MyASU provide a good start on this, so maybe it’s simply laziness that keeps us from searching out a particular item in the library. After all, inconvenience is a dying concept.
Hayden has also done a good job of ramping up its student friendliness. The addition of collaborative working space and TVs that be hooked up to computers serves as a great way to get students to the library and make better use of resources, even if those resources are just other students.
The traditional function of the library is becoming a thing of the past. Now, it is more of a social gathering place and somewhere to go to check Facebook quietly with intermittent periods of studying than it is to do extensive research.
Reach the columnist at lweinick@asu.edu
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