The quiet agora: Undergraduate perceptions of the academic library

Abstract

This research paper reports the findings of a grounded theory analysis of undergraduate perceptions of academic libraries serving their university community. The qualitative researchers employed long interviews to interview forty-one participants at various stages in their undergraduate career in order to determine how they perceive the academic library as an institution. Three theoretical categories emerged from the data analysis: (1) Constructing the Academic Library as Geographic Space, (2) Constructing the Academic Library as Idea, and (3) Constructing the Library Worker. The researchers found that participants may simultaneously view the academic library as physical geography and idealistic abstraction, and that the physical navigation of the library may remain hindered despite normative perceptions of the academic library.

Keywords:

• Undergraduates
• academic libraries
• library as space
• library as place
• student perceptions