Stacks, Serials, Search Engines, and Students' Success: First-Year Undergraduate Students' Library Use, Academic Achievement, and Retention

• Published in: The Journal of academic librarianship Vol. 40; no. 1; pp. 84 - 91
• Main Authors: Soria, Krista M., Fransen, Jan, Nackerud, Shane
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01.01.2014; Elsevier; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Academic achievement; Academic libraries; College students; Communication. Information transfer; Exact sciences and technology; First-year college students; Grade Point Average; Information and communication sciences; Information science. Documentation; Information service management; Library and documentation centre management; Library and information science. General aspects; Library use; Retention; Sciences and techniques of general use; Student retention; Students; Success; Undergraduate Students; Use; User service management; Library use; First-year college students; Student retention; Grade point average; Serial; Periodical; Use; Search engine; Higher education library; Achievement; Student
• ISSN: 0099-1333; 1879-1999
• DOI: 10.1016/j.acalib.2013.12.002

Like other units within colleges and universities, academic libraries are subject to increasing internal and external pressures to demonstrate their contributions to institutional goals related to students' success. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between first-year undergraduate students' use of the academic library, academic achievement, and retention. Results of ordinary least squares regressions predicting first-year students' cumulative grade point averages (GPA) and logistic regressions predicting students' first-year to second-year retention suggest that students who used academic library services and resources at least once during the academic year had higher GPA and retention on average than their peers who did not use library services. The results of two separate regressions predicting students' GPA by 10 different types of library use suggest that four library use areas were consistently and positively associated with students' GPA: database logins, book loans, electronic journal logins, and library workstation logins. The results of two separate logistic regression analyses suggest that logging into databases and using library workstations were actions consistently and positively associated with students' retention. Additional results predicted by students' use of services at least one time and by one-unit increases in the frequency of library area uses are discussed.