2012 Student Satisfaction Survey

Each year during spring quarter the library asks students to give us their opinions about library resources and services.  Responses will be analyzed over the next few months to determine how well student needs are being met by the library.  The Library staff would like to thank all of the students who participated in the survey and share with you some of the responses, answering a few questions from the comments. 

272 students (or 27% of enrollment) responded to the 2012 survey.  Survey questions offer students the ability to both rank the library using a numerical ranking as well as make a written comment to a question.  Examples of some of the numerical rankings include:

• 93% of students interact with the library staff when they visit the library, asking for help on a wide range of questions
• 88% of students ranked the quality of library service as Always Helpful and Very Interested in helping when asked a question
• 70% of students use the library’s database collection at least once each week to help with their classes

Why do you visit the library?  Some student comments were:

Great place to learn

Check out books

Read and relax

Catch a nap

Other comments include:

…no one else says hi to me whenever I come in.

A frequent comment on each year’s survey is regarding the lack of a greeting from the library staff when a student enters the library.   While staff members are very interested in serving students, we strive to maintain a studious atmosphere and don’t want to disturb users any more than necessary, especially when we have a lot of users studying alone. This does not mean that we don’t want to work with students. Please ask us questions whenever we can help!

Why don’t you provide textbooks?

The library does not have textbooks in the collection for many reasons--they are expensive, highly prone to theft even when they are not allowed to circulate, and quickly made redundant by new editions. If they are allowed to circulate, they tend to be checked out almost constantly, which leads to increasing demands to purchase more copies. Unless a copy is purchased for each enrolled student, which is simply not feasible, a few students will be pleased that they don’t have to buy textbooks, but the vast majority will be disappointed and angry. This situation doesn’t serve our mission, which is to provide the best possible service to as many students as possible.

I would like to use electronic resources, but I do not know how.

Provide more information on the resources that are available and how to use them.

In addition to the material physically in the library, the library offers database searching for journal articles (many of which are full-text) by subject as well as electronic copies of books.  The list of these resources is available on the library’s web page along with tutorials on how to get started.  If you need a particular type of resource or would like a quick demo on how to use the databases, stop by the library desk anytime – we’d love to tell you more about what you can find!

Too much "socializing" & loud conversations going on with others "using" the library.

I am easily distracted and people socializing in the library cause great distraction at times.

Have bigger library more space can hardly move around.

The library offers many services out of our space – computers & printing, study tables, browsing for library books and DVDs, paperback book collection, magazine & journal research – just to name a few.  During certain times of the day things can get quite busy in the library.  The library staff want to help each student use our resources and asks everyone to respect their fellow students and behave appropriately.   If you are having problems, please talk with us and let us know how we can help!

Thanks again to each student that took the time to respond to our survey!!

Congratulations to the winner of our giveaway drawing, Mr. Robert Arthur – winner of a $25 Sullivan Bookstore certificate.