Serving Higher Education’s Highest Goals: Assessment of the Academic Library as Place

Abstract

An empirical study was conducted using methods borrowed from the psychology of religion (instead of corporate assessment techniques) to assess whether the academic library as place supports students’ desire to feel connected to higher education’s mission. The findings from an in-person survey of fifty-four students at three universities showed a preference for exterior and interior images of traditional libraries over those classed as modern, and those images evoked feelings of scholarship, engagement, spirituality, and other positive emotions, as well as subjects’ desire to use those spaces more than they currently use their existing library.