On-campus students' remote use of Internet-based library services and resources : is there an impact on students' use of the library in-house

Abstract

With the increase of Internet access available to on-campus students and a growing number of Internet-based library services and resources available by remote access, ongoing research is necessary to monitor who the remote users are and whether remote use of the library has an impact on the use of the library in-house. This study surveyed on-campus students at the School of Education of the University of Waikato. At the beginning of April 2001 a questionnaire was distributed in a number of classes representing the different levels of the main teacher training programmes. Nearly half of all students enrolled in these programmes were surveyed. In line with findings of previous studies, this study found that a greater number of higher level and older students use the library resources and services by remote access. However, there was also evidence that younger students and students at lower levels increasingly use remote access to the library. The study did not find a clear pattern of how remote use of the library affects on-campus students' use of the library in-house, but identified some trends of remote user behaviour. There was evidence that some remote users are heavier users of the library in-house than on-campus students who use the library in-house only. On the other hand, this study also found that some remote users used the library less in-house as a result of having remote access.