Whether the student had gone there physically was besides the point. In fact, some libraries are bookless, so it is unlikely for people to want to be there often. A recent Guardian article reported on Florida Polytechnic University's new digital library; the article “Bookless Library Opened by New US University” explains that the building harbours “not a single physical book”! All available material is digital, including books. The sad news, as Tara Barbazon notes in her book “The University of Google: Education in a (Post) Information Age” is that popular culture has overtaken proper academic culture. Students (and others) find the world wide web much more attractive than libraries though the quality of information accessed on the wider web is often doubtful in comparison. Libraries are not only physically empty in some cases: their resources are under-utilized – and the phenomenon appears global.
The Mexico News Daily recently described the situation in “Something Needs to be Done About Empty Libraries”; while Mexico has the largest public library system in Latin America, “they’re not very useful when empty” - compared with European libraries, their resources are wasted. Similarly, the Brunei Times claims that libraries across the country are “underutilized” (“Library Resources Underused”), prompting those in charge to find solutions, including better promotion of the resources.
In the UK, the Literacy Trust has reported that “many school libraries are underutilised resources that do not fulfil their potential to improve literacy levels and support pupil learning and attainment”, highlighting the need for schools, local authorities and Government to make sure school libraries are properly exploited (“School Libraries Are a Wasted Resource”). Likewise, in the University of Southern California’s Daily Trojan, Rebecca Gao describes the situation at USC: “Often, students only frequent the libraries for a quiet place to study, to use a computer or to print. USC appears to be well aware of the evolution toward online resources and has continually updated its subscriptions to educational databases or purchased additional e-resources to encourage student research. Whether students use these resources, however, is another case” (Digital Libraries Wasted”).
It is puzzling and unfortunate that so few students use the resources that university libraries make such an effort to secure and invest in.
