Socioeconomic Indicators Associated with First-year College Students' Use of Academic Libraries

The purpose of this study was to examine whether a wide variety of socioeconomic indicators were associated with first-year college students' use of academic libraries in six areas: checking out books from general circulation, reading electronic books, using online reference librarian services or speaking with a peer research consultant, logging into an electronic journal, using library workstations, or logging into a database. Data were drawn from 5133 first-year students attending a large, public research-extensive university in the upper Midwest of the United States. The results suggest that first-year students from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds are less likely to utilize libraries in nearly all areas. Some mixed findings also emerged suggesting that socioeconomic indicators such as hours spent in employment each week, living situation, and family are not uniformly predictive of students' use of academic libraries.