Second Poll Story

Hannah Schott
Nov. 25, 2009
Library use poll

The library at Anoka-Ramsey Community College's Coon Rapids campus allows students to access numerous resources. The library houses over 40,000 books and provides 10 computers for student use.

The library utilizes the Minnesota Project for Automated Library Systems (MnPALS), an interlibrary loan system. "The library has access to millions of materials from colleges all across the state," said Al Mamaril, a librarian at the Coon Rapids campus library. "The library's electronic access database contains thousands of other materials," Mamaril added.

Mamaril noted that because of the college's increase in enrollment, the number of students checking out books has gone up.

To find out how many Anoka-Ramsey students use the college library, 30 students were polled last week. Of the students polled, four were polled in the library, 19 were polled in an English class, two were polled online, and five were polled in the college lounge.

There was an equal number of students, 11, who used the library zero to three times during a semester and who used the library eight or more times during a semester. There were eight students who used the library four to seven times during a semester.

Of the 11 students who used the library zero to three times during a semester, many relied on computers. Seven of those students used computers to find information, and three students both asked librarians for help and used computers to find information.

Although most of those students found the library’s information helpful, four of them did not check out any books during a semester and only three checked out five or more books. The other four students checked out one to four books.

Of those students, nine were completing their first semester, one had attended Anoka-Ramsey for one to two years and one had attended the college for three years or more.

Eight students used the library four to seven times during a semester and most found the library’s information helpful. A majority of those students both asked librarians for help and used computers to find information, and three solely used computers to find information.

Half of those students checked out five or more books during a semester, and half checked out one to four books during a semester. For six of those students, this was their first semester, while two had attended the college for three or more years.

Out of the 11 students who used the library eight or more times during a semester, nine of them both asked librarians for help and used computers to find information. The same number found the library’s information helpful.

Of those students, seven checked out five or more books during a semester, and four checked out one to four books during a semester. The majority of those students were completing their first semester, while four had attended Anoka-Ramsey for three or more years.

“It’s nice knowing that there are academic sources at school if I need them,” one student commented about the library.

Barbara Sloboden, a librarian at the Coon Rapids campus library, said: “We librarians teach English class students about how to use the library. When we teach, the point we try to bring home is that while Google may be a user-friendly way to find information, the library has scholarly resources, and librarians are happy to help students use those resources.”