In 2006, Arizona State University hosted a student focus group discussion to investigate how students use the library. The students came from several different disciplines and were in different stages of their academic careers.
In a nutshell
This is all good data, but...
The students who participated in the focus group reported that they:
Wishlist- regularly communicate via text messaging and instant messaging
- use wireless technology
- prefer laptops to desktops
- listen to podcasts
- read blogs
- use social networking sites daily
- put the microfilm collection online
- comfy chairs
- ability to have materials sent to you
- audio coursebooks downloadable to ipods
- blogs to introduce new services and new resources
- entire video collection in downloadable format
- good selection of popular works
- librarians who circulate and ask patrons if they need help
This is all good data, but...
We can extrapolate a bit, but this data is a couple years out of date, and it does not necessarily reflect the needs of the UCSC student population.
