Once considered the "heart of the university," many academic libraries are facing heightened pressures to prove their relevance and value to administrators, faculty, and students, especially during these times of constrained resources and greater calls for accountability and productivity in higher education. At the same time, colleges and universities are continually striving to understand how their institutional environments affect undergraduate engagement, persistence and, ultimately, degree attainment. As a fundamental co-curricular resource, it is time for academic libraries to start systematically assessing how they affect, either directly or indirectly, their parent institutions' goals of student engagement and persistence. This quantitative study investigated the relationship between the use of an academic library, its physical resources and spaces, and student engagement and persistence at a large, public, research university. This unique study combined institutional and library data sources for analysis, including the results from a large-scale student experience survey with over 13,000 respondents, data from the student information system, and library use data from a variety of library data systems. Descriptive statistics as well as correlations, linear regressions, and logistic regressions were conducted to investigate the relationship between the library-use variables and variables representing sense of belonging and satisfaction, academic engagement, academic disengagement, and persistence. The study found many practically significant, as well as statistically significant, correlations and predictive relationships between the library-use variables and the student outcome variables for engagement and persistence, although most of the effect sizes were small. The small to medium effect sizes re-presented in the results suggest that there a complex relationships between the variables and indicate the need for further research. This study contributes to an area of the literature that has received little attention from previous researchers and demonstrates one approach to creating a unique student-level dataset by combining student experience survey data with institutional data and library use data in order to investigate how the use of library resources and spaces may affect student success outcomes. / text

Thesis (M.L.S.)--Brigham Young University. / Chiefly tables. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-144).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Chicago. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 180-183).

Thesis (MIS) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009. / Full text also available online. Scroll down for electronic link.

The study attempted to determine if library skills in a community college could be taught more effectively within a one-class-period time frame by a video self-instruction unit or by classroom teaching. The experiment also considered the comparative effectiveness of both modes of instruction when used in groups of developmental and degree-program students. The study was conducted at a multi-campus community college in the fall of 1976. Fourteen English classes (seven developmental, and seven degree-program) participated, yielding 120 subjects after attrition. Each class was separately randomized into two groups. The first group reported to the classroom as usual for instruction in library skills; the second group completed a video self-instructional unit on their own during a designated time period. Instructors of the classroom groups administered post-tests to their students immediately after the lesson. For students in the video self-instructional groups, members of the Learning Resources Center staff administered the post-tests individually. Delayed post-tests were administered to students in both types of groups, by the instructor, 12 days after the "classroom teaching" session. The analysis of variance with repeated measures revealed no significant differences between those taught by the classroom method, and those taught by a video self-instruction unit, for both times of testing. / Ed. D.

The present study attempted to investigate the usage of libraries by overseas students. The research was carried out in two universities in the ACT, namely, the Australian National University (ANU) and the University of Canberra (UC). The study investigated two main aspects: the use of institutional as well as other libraries in the ACT, and the difficulties encountered in utilising institutional libraries. These two aspects were also treated as the dependent variables. Relationships between these two dependent variables and the following characteristics, which were regarded as the independent variables, were tested: the institution attended (ANU or UC), having had library orientation in the institution attended, previous use of libraries, mediums of instructions in previous educational institutions, level of study, year of study, period of time spent in Australia, gender, and age. The research used survey methodology. A questionnaire was sent to a sample of 521 overseas students and a response rate of 72 percent was obtained. With regard to the use of institutional libraries, it was found that most students visited their libraries more than once a week. The three most used library facilities were borrowing books, use of library staff for assistance and the short loan service, while the three least used facilities were inhouse information sheets, abstracts and indexes, and CD-ROM databases. The three most used libraries in the ACT in descending order were the ANU library system, the National library of Australia, and the University of Canberra library. Difficulties encountered in utilising institutional libraries included difficulty in utilising library facilities, difficulty with library rules and regulations, difficulty in looking for required materials in the libraries, unsuccessful library visits, difficulties as a result of English being a second language, difficulty following the layout of the libraries and perception of the libraries' atmosphere. Relationships were found between some of the independent variables and the dependent variables. In some cases, the findings were expected while in other cases they were unexpected. With the unexpected findings, it is possible that one or more independent variables, other than the ones under consideration, influenced the findings thus leading to surprising results. The study concludes with recommendations and suggestions for further research.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, 1996. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 177-183).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University, 1993. / Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-178).

Thesis (Ed. D)--Northern Illinois University, 1994. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1994. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 191-199).