Document Type
Poster
Organization
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Conference Title
Library Assessment Conference 2022
City and State
Online Conference
Conference Date
Nov. 1-2, 2022
Publication Date
11-2-2022
Abstract
Purpose and goals
Due to the continuous evolution of higher education and the decline in the size of public university budgets, academic libraries have become increasingly creative to ensure they can offer the widest possible range of services and resources to their user base. This study assesses the experience of library users with OverDrive in a small, rural, regional university. The goal of this study is to raise awareness of the uses and benefits of this resource for academic libraries.
Design, methodology, or approach
The study utilizes an emailed quantitative, online survey that is completely voluntary. It does not request any personally identifiable information. The results will be used to understand the way different user types at Rogers State University (RSU) do, or do not, use OverDrive and the Libby App, available through RSU Libraries. The data gathered will be analyzed with the goals of identifying patterns of use among different user types, areas for collection growth, and new ways of improving resource marketing.
Findings
RSU Libraries launched OverDrive at RSU during the late fall semester of 2018. Now that the RSU community has had access to this resource for three years, we hope to see many users who are utilizing OverDrive at a library are also aware of the RSU Libraries OverDrive collection. We tentatively anticipate that many RSU Libraries’ users are accessing OverDrive primarily for academic purposes and secondarily for entertainment.
Practical implications or value
The findings of our survey will be integrated into a full case study to be published and presented at a state library conference. We hope to leverage our study to expand interest in the creation of an academic OverDrive consortium in order to reduce costs and expand access to more public Oklahoma universities. We would like to change the current perception in Oklahoma academic libraries that OverDrive is primarily for public library use.
Recommended Citation
Loving, Katherine, "OverDrive User Experience Within a Small, Rural Academic Library" (2022). Faculty Articles & Research. 71.
https://dc.swosu.edu/libraries_articles/71
Comments
Unless stated otherwise within this repository collection, all materials are shared under the following Creative Commons license: [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License].