I was indeed suggesting more user-friendly buildings. These particular buildings are less than 30 years old; I wonder what the architect (and the committee who approved the design) was thinking to have come up with such a forbidding layout (there are areas on some floors where I do not, as a female, feel safe, and I avoid those places entirely. Thankfully, most of the literature in my field is in a different building). Most people would rather be in comfortable situations (and I don't think Americans have a corner on low pain thresholds) than uncomfortable ones. When the opportunity is there to maximimise creature comforts, I don't understand the reasoning behind ignoring them.

My comments were simply meant as anecdotal "evidence" why some people may stay away from libraries. Beyond the aesthetics (and the annoying copying costs, which are a hardship for grad students on tiny stipends) there lies a deeper problem. I taught a junior-level course last spring and was shocked to find out that my students - some of whom were seniors - had no idea what the difference was between a trade journal and a research journal. They were unable to name the premier research journal in our field. They had never, until my class, been required to write a paper referencing a peer-reviewed journal.

These students used the library as a group study area only. Occasionally they would make use of the public computer labs to surf the Web and check their e-mail, but only if the department labs were full. They had no idea where the journals were even kept.

If students aren't required to make use of research materials, most of them simply won't go to the library. If they don't go to the library, they miss out on the riches stored there. Not every college student is a voracious reader or a "nerd" who would rather go to the library than the exercise room. These students need incentive to exercise their reading and thinking muscles.

My point, I guess, is that there are a number of reasons for the drop in library use. Online access is only one of them, and probably not as important as we think. Coffee bars, while a nice idea (can we have tea, too?) won't solve the underlying problem alone.

-- Carol F., graduate student (posted 11/26, 3:20 p.m., U.S. Eastern time)

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