Assessing the Research Needs of Graduate Students at Georgetown University

Describes a two-part study of the research needs of graduate students at Georgetown University. The first part, conducted in May 2010, consisted of an online survey about students' research practices and opinions about the library. The second part, conducted in May 2011, consisted of focus groups with particular subsets of graduate students. The goals of the study were to: 1) gain insight into students' research habits; 2) determine how they use and perceive the library; 3) determine any differences in responses between students in different disciplines; and 4) uncover distinctions between “scholarly” students (those intent on careers in academia) and “professional” students (those intent on careers outside of academia). Survey responses and focus group transcripts reflected three common broad themes: 1) Infrastructure (library building, furniture, designated space for graduate students); 2) Awareness & Scholarly Support (awareness of specialized library resources and services, tailored orientation and instruction); and 3) Access Services (availability of resources on and off campus, interlibrary and consortial lending, borrowing policies). Humanities students were much more familiar with library services and resources than social science students. Among social science students, we found few differences between the “scholarly” and “professional” groups.