OCLC Report: College Students Love Google

-- Library Journal, 06/06/2006

It's no surprise, but a new report from OCLC, College Students' Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources, a subset of OCLC's larger Perceptions report, tells us that 89 percent of college students' information searches begin with a search engine. Google was the overwhelming favorite (68 percent). Also, the top activity for students in the library was studying, closely followed by accessing the Internet; neither is a surprise given the trend toward technology and more people-friendly information commons on campus. Conducted over a two-week period in Spring 2005, the larger Perceptions survey was done online and drew 3,348 responses. Among those responses, those from 396 college students and 621 14-17 year-olds were analyzed in this study. Among the topics: awareness and use of library electronic resources, search engines, free vs. for-fee information and the "library brand." While college students are more aware of and use libraries more than general survey respondent, awareness, it seems, does not always translate into high usage.