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Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2008, 3:3 

 

101 

 

   Evidence Based Library and Information Practice  
 

 
 

Letters to the Editor 

 

Commentary on a Library Non-Use Study 

 

Judith Siess 

President, Information Bridges International 

Champaign, Illinois, United States of America 

E-mail: jsiess@ibi-opl.com  

 

Received: 13 April 2008     Accepted: 17 June 2008 

 

 
© 2008 Siess. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons 

Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, 

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 

 

 
When I read Non-use of Library Services by 

Students in a UK Academic Library, by Lisa 

Toner in EBLIP 3:2, 2008, I just had to write 

down the following comments on this 

wonderful article and study. 

 

I was impressed that not only did Toner 

study why people did not use the library, 

she actually implemented the results (“the 

results were then fed into the library’s 

future strategic planning cycle”). She also 

looked at specific possible reasons for non-

uses: inconvenient opening hours, use of 

electronic resources, lack of or poor 

introduction to the library, poor perception 

of library service.  

The methodology was excellent. The study 

period was long enough (three months), 

they did a pilot survey, used two method of 

distribution (mail and in classrooms) and 

got a quite acceptable response rate (14 

percent).  

 

Many people are quick to jump to 

conclusions based on their survey results, 

but Toner was more cautious:  “…the 

incidence of non-use of library services does 

increase with age. However, these results 

could also indicate that older people are 

more diligent in returning their survey 

forms.” “[After a] further analysis of the age 

ranges…, mode of study and age do seem to 

be predictors of use of the library services”. 

 

Her report even included results that were 

not favorable: “The results [on information 

sources used] highlighted that non-users not 

only made no use of traditional library 

services but only made limited use of the 

electronic resources provided by the library. 

Just under a third of non-users did not make 

any use of the College’s electronic 

resources.... In contrast to this, the majority 

(88 percent) use the Internet as a source of 

information for their assignments.” 

 

I was a bit surprised that in this day and age 

students could respond that they “did not 



Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2008, 3:3 

 

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need” libraries (four percent) or “do not like 

libraries at all” (one percent). However, 

those that say they do not need libraries 

probably just don’t know that they need 

them or what libraries have to offer. 

 

One very insightful and important 

conclusion that Toner made was, “this 

[respondents who buy their own books or 

borrow them from their friends instead of 

borrowing from the library] demonstrates a 

significant shift away from the concept of 

the library being the provider of all the 

research and information needs of 

students…. Students who do not borrow 

books are on the whole not using other 

library services either. Those [students who 

use the library via computer] who do visit 

the library building do so mainly for 

photocopying services (25 percent) or 

private study.” These indicate the changing 

nature of the library–from warehouse of 

information to social networking workplace. 

       

Additionally, not only has the library taken 

specific steps to remedy the shortcoming 

revealed from the study, but they recognize 

that they need to repeat the evaluation cycle, 

as shown by the following: “The results of 

the survey have shown that they library 

needs to become much more creative in its 

marketing, publicity, and promotion to non-

user groups, particularly part-time and 

distance learners. As a consequence, the 

Faculty Liaison teams have been 

strengthened and library staff work more 

closely with course and program leaders to 

ensure that all students receive meaningful 

induction and subsequent training on 

databases, information searching, and 

critical thinking skills. An increasing 

number of students are taught not to rely 

totally on the Internet for their information 

needs. Work has been done to embed this 

training into the curriculum wherever 

possible and the library staff are 

increasingly included in the training of 

students at remote locations. Further 

research is needed to analyse the 

effectiveness of our actions in 2-3 years time 

when it is hoped that much of the impact of 

increased training and promotion will have 

had a positive effect on usage figures.” 

  

This is a wonderful study–a model for 

others to follow. 

  

Judith Siess