Marginal and nonusers of a small academic library

Abstract

In fall 2019 the Access Services and User Engagement librarians at the Woodbury University Library undertook to identify campus library marginal and nonusers among faculty and students. We administered an online survey and conducted follow-up, one-on-one interviews in an effort to understand: (1) Why some Woodbury community members visit the library and/or use its physical and/or digital resources infrequently or not at all; (2) Whether and how these marginal and nonusers secure the resources necessary to teach or learn successfully at Woodbury; (3) Whether and how these marginal and nonusers acquire the research competencies necessary to teach or learn successfully. We additionally utilized data from past responses to the library’s annual user survey in order to define and contrast marginal and nonuse with regular library use. Investigations into the behaviors of library marginal and nonusers are rare and have generally focused on how libraries might better market their collections, services, and spaces. We expanded our focus to include identification of services and resources available to University community members outside of the library with a view toward understanding what other entities might be better suited to provide and, thus, how we in the library might re-formulate our unique value proposition.

Keywords:

• Academic libraries
• access services
• library marginal users
• library nonusers