College students craving a sense of belonging on campus can find it at the library

By Madisen King, madiseki@ttu.edu

College students who need to feel they belong on their college campuses can find it in a variety of places – by joining a club, attending a sporting event,  and… even by going to the library.

Research conducted by faculty members of the Texas Tech University library and data from the Texas Tech Library, show that there is a gate count of roughly 600,000 visitors to the Texas Tech library a year, but only an average of 40,000 books are checked by students.

Why do students go to the library every day if not to check out a book?

While there’s research on the sense of belonging that students gain from their friend groups, social groups, sporting events, and other social aspects, there’s no research on the role of the library in the social life of students, according Ryan Litsey, Texas Tech’s associate dean for user centered services.  So Litsey and his colleagues have begun researching how the library atmosphere fits into that.

“The ambiance plays a role,” Litsey said. “For example, if we emptied this building and there were no books, that would really traumatize a student, and they wouldn’t like that. Even though they don’t check out the books like they did in the past, they want to see them.”

The data provided shows that the comparison of book circulation rates versus the gate count of people visiting the library every year has varied dramatically. In 2019, the book circulation total was 98,803, which is the highest circulation total shown in the data, but the gate count was 1,042,148. In 2024, the book circulation was 68,649, and the gate count was 774,894.

There is no question that COVID-19 impacted these numbers, chasing people away from the library in 2020 and 2021, and students have only begun to trickle back over the past two years.  

Destiny Lane, a junior journalism major at Texas Tech from Dallas, said the library is a better place to study and do homework than at home.

“At home, I’ll say I want to do homework, and then 30 minutes will go by, and I’ll push it off until later,” Lane said. “Seeing everyone else at the library working makes you want to work and be better and get your work done.”

Hannah Stuart, a freshman environmental engineering major at Texas Tech from Lubbock, Texas, explained her experience with feeling like she did not belong on a college campus and how both social and academic aspects changed that.

“You can get the social sense of belonging by joining a club, especially if you’re not from Lubbock, then feeling like you belong is a really important part of the college experience,” Stuart said. “But, if you come to class prepared, you have a sense of accomplishment and understanding of the class, and you feel more comfortable being there and being active. I think that contributes to your sense of belonging at school by being academically satisfied.”

According to Carlton J. Fong and other researchers, student belonging is becoming a basic human need. When students feel like they belong on a campus, their sense of achievement and persistence is better because it enhances their motivation, engagement, and desire to seek further help through tutors or other academic help.

Litsey also said that when students feel a sense of belonging, their motivation to do well and graduate increases.

“The reason students need to build a comprehensive acceptance of belonging is because the more you feel like you belong, the more likely you are to stay and graduate, which is ultimately the key,” Litsey said. “It’s great that students are coming to college, and now we’d like them to stay. It sets you up better for life because the lifetime earnings of a college student drastically outweigh a high school student.”

Litsey said the library integrates itself with other surveys around campus and will, sometimes, go into the library and ask students questions. They also do informal surveys. Last year, they had a survey called Love Letters to the Library, where students wrote something they loved about the library and tracked those comments.

Belonging is an integral part of college experiences for students, and the data shows that students can feel belonging in numerous areas of campus life, like sporting events, dorm rooms, and their campus library.