If Students Aren’t Using the Library, It’s Not Because They Don’t Care

There’s a common myth in academic and school settings: students don’t value the library anymore. They use Google. They rely on Reddit. They trust social media over scholarly sources.

But that’s not the whole story.

Students aren’t ignoring the library because they don’t care. They’re ignoring it because it’s hard to find. Or because it shows up too late. Or because the help it offers feels disconnected from what they actually need.

The Attention Problem

The average student is juggling five classes, multiple deadlines, and a never-ending stream of distractions. If something takes more than two clicks to find, they move on.

Traditional research guides, complex database portals, and long lists of links don’t match that pace. Even when the content is great, it gets lost in the noise.

Visibility Matters as Much as Quality

Libraries often focus on building strong collections, and rightfully so. But without visibility, even the best resource might as well not exist.

Faculty don’t always know what to promote. Students don’t know where to look. And librarians don’t have time to manually match resources to every course and assignment.

This is not a content problem. It’s a connection problem.

Meeting Students Where They Are

The best libraries are shifting their mindset. Instead of waiting for students to come to them, they’re finding ways to meet students in the flow of their work.

That might mean:

• Embedding support directly in learning management systems
• Creating guides based on syllabus content and class timelines
• Automating how and when recommendations are shared

In short, it means treating discovery like marketing. Not just delivering resources, but surfacing them at the right moment, with the right context.

A Call to Rethink Access

Students still want support. They still care about quality. But they expect it to be easy to find and tailored to what they’re working on right now.

The question isn’t whether the library is still relevant. The question is how we help students see that it is.

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