vol. 14, no. 1 (2019)
Theory and Research (peer-reviewed)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v14i1.4767
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Going Dark: What Are the Consequences of Losing
Off-Campus Access to Library Resources?
Chris Hurst
Systems Librarian
Brandon University
hurst@brandonu.ca
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1759-5680
H. Rainer Schira
Acting University Librarian
Brandon University
schirar@brandonu.ca
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3915-8262

Abstract
In October 2013, one of Brandon University’s servers was hacked, and the campus’s
servers were isolated from the internet. This led to the loss of off-campus library
services to students and faculty. To investigate the effects of this loss, the authors
surveyed Brandon University students and conducted semi-structured interviews with
Brandon University faculty. The authors found that 68% of the students surveyed
reported that the loss of access to off-campus library services affected them in some
measure. The survey provided insight on why some students were not affected by the
loss of access. The survey also provided data on how the loss of access affected
students. The semi-structured interviews provided perspectives on the difficulties of the
situation. Although the authors do not want to ever face this problem again, the study
provided important lessons in provision of library service in these situations.

Introduction
Brandon University is a primarily undergraduate university based in Brandon, Manitoba
with a satellite campus in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The university has five faculties or

Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, vol. 14, no. 1 (2019)

schools (Arts, Science, Health Studies, Education, and Music) with graduate programs
in Music, Education, Psychiatric Nursing, Rural Development, and Environmental & Life
Sciences. The university has 3,282 undergraduate students, 380 graduate students,
and 241 faculty members.
In October 2013, one of Brandon University's servers was hacked. As a result, the
university had to isolate its servers from the internet. This meant that the university had
to shut down its proxy server for library content. It also meant that the library catalogue,
the interlibrary loan software, and the University’s version of Moodle, all of which were
run from a university server, were unavailable off campus.
All messages about the ongoing difficulties were managed centrally in the university’s
communications office, with updates being sent to the campus on a regular basis. Any
information the library had for students or faculty was included in these updates. The
most important library information was the alternate methods created for reaching some
of the library content off campus, in particular usernames and passwords for access to
EBSCOhost. These usernames and passwords were obtainable by emailing a librarian.
Full access to the proxy server was not restored for three weeks. All library resources
remained available on campus, either in the library or through wireless access
throughout campus. While we would never choose to subject students or faculty to such
hardship, it presented a singular opportunity to examine how such hardship affected the
students’ information-seeking behaviour and the consequences it had for their
coursework.

Affected Library Systems
Multiple library services and systems were affected. For off-campus students, a key part
of the infrastructure is the university’s proxy server, which allows the student to access
electronic material as if the student was on campus. Many electronic resources are
made available to university students and faculty based on the university’s internet
protocol (IP) addresses. The proxy server takes the off-campus IP address and
substitutes a university IP address as it relays the request to the resource provider. If a
student cannot access the proxy server, then a student’s request to the resource
provider is met by either a request for a username and password or a request for an
access fee.
Off-campus students were also affected by loss of access to the library’s online
catalogue. The server for the library’s catalogue was hosted on campus, and access to
all campus servers was restricted to on-campus students and faculty. The library
catalogue’s web access and Z39.50 protocol access were both affected. The library’s
holdings were available through OCLC’s WorldCat service, but that did not indicate
whether a physical item was available on the shelf.
The library’s Interlibrary Loan (ILL) system was also hosted locally, and web access to
that was only available to on-campus users. However, both students and faculty made

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use of email to send requests to the interlibrary staff, who manually entered the
requests into the ILL system.
The university’s content management system, Moodle, was also affected. The system
was not run by the library, but its server was hosted by the university. It was not
available off campus. Either off-campus students were forced to come onto campus to
retrieve their readings from Moodle, or the professors emailed the readings directly to
the students.
In summary, if students were on campus, they had access to all the library and
university resources to which they would normally have had access. However, if
students were off campus, they could not access the library’s catalogue. The students
could not access the library’s electronic resources, except by asking for an EBSCOhost
username and password, and then the students could only access EBSCOhost
resources. The students could not access the university’s Moodle system, and if the
students needed resources on Moodle they had to ask the professors directly for those
resources. If the students needed an ILL, they had to email the ILL staff directly.

What Could This Have Meant to Off-Campus Students?
While it is impossible to arrive at an exact figure of how many students and faculty
members access library resources from off campus, rather than from computers on
campus (either in the library, student computing facilities, or faculty offices), it seems
safe to say that the majority access library resources from off campus. In 2012, 66 per
cent of the recorded IP addresses accessing EBSCOhost, Brandon University's most
used library resource, were from Brandon University's proxy server's IP address. This
does not necessarily make them distance students. More likely, these students simply
find it more convenient to do their research from off campus.
In general, the use of electronic resources has seen steady growth at the university,
increasing from 112,439 downloads in 2006 to 194,674 downloads in 2017. By contrast,
the number of circulation loans has decreased from 49,208 in 2006 to 14,173 in 2017.
In eleven years, the ratio of electronic usage to print usage has gone from 2.28 to
13.76.
We wanted to know how this disruption to library services affected off-campus students.
One hypothesis was that the disruption would cause off-campus students to turn to
Google and freely available resources on the internet, and would not be greatly affected
by the disruption. We will call this the convenience hypothesis, as convenience of
access has been shown to be a critical factor in information-seeking behaviour
(Connaway, Dickey, & Radford, 2011). The contrasting hypothesis is that off-campus
students would be affected negatively by the loss of access to electronic resources
provided through the library.

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Off-Campus Library Service – A Review
The origins of off-campus library service are found in off-campus education programs.
There are two main forms of off-campus education. The first involves face-to-face
classroom instruction where traveling or, sometimes, local part-time instructors teach
courses at off-campus locations (Slade, 1991). The second is distance education where
the instructors and learners are physically separated and the teaching is conducted
through print mechanical or electronic devices (Holmberg, 1977).
Service to off-campus students began in earnest in the early 1970s (Kascus & Aguilar,
1988). There were four main service models used:
•

The branch library/study centre model where the university rents some remote
space for use in the provision of remote classes.

•

The trunk delivery system model where the university delivers the resources for
the classes from the trunk of a car.

•

The partnership with local library model where the university partners with a local
public library to provide space for the provision of classes.

•

The reading list model where the university sends out a reading list for a course
and provides information as to how the items on the reading list can be obtained.
(Fisher, 1991; Kascus & Aguilar, 1988; Lessin, 1991)

These models were not exclusive, and many universities used a combination of models.
If a recent survey of library services is representative, the first three models are not
used significantly anymore, probably replaced by direct delivery to the student (Behr &
Hayward, 2016). However, the fourth model has been adapted into content
management systems such as Moodle.
All of these models aimed to replicate on-campus library services as much as possible.
The Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL) has produced a set of
Standards (called Guidelines until 2008) that cover the services that should be provided
for distance learning (ACRL, 2016). As the standards explain when they talk of the
changing nature of “distance,” these services have changed in many ways since offcampus library service began, but the underlying principles in providing access to all offcampus library users remain. The standards include a comprehensive list of services,
but the emphasis in the service models above was access to collections, access to
indexes and catalogues to search for materials, and access to reference services
(Kascus & Aguilar, 1988).
By the late 1980s, access to online catalogues and databases could be made available
through dial-up services, although many library networks were still reliant on fixed
terminals to provide access (Lessin, 1991). Needed materials were provided by a
combination of mail, messenger services, and fax (Lessin, 1991; Slade, 1991). The
World Wide Web brought the ability for off-campus students to more effectively search
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catalogues and indexes by making them more readily available. The next step was the
full-text database, which allowed off-campus students to directly access articles when
the students were authenticated by their university. This was coupled with the
development of the OpenURL link resolvers, which provided students a seamless link
from the index to the full text of the article (Bower & Mee, 2010). Further developments
like federated searching, campus learning management systems, and library discovery
systems enhanced the off-campus library experience. Full text databases did not
eliminate the need for interlibrary loan or document delivery services, as there was
always demand for resources not available in full text (Dew, 2001).
The ACRL Standards talk about the changing nature of what distance means in
distance learning. Students can now be in their family homes, apartments, or dorm
rooms, and access library materials in the same way as students hundreds of
kilometres away from the library (ACRL, 2016). Students can take traditional courses
and online courses in the same semester. Provision of access must encompass all
forms of distance learning.

Information-Seeking Behaviour and Distance Learning – A Review
In general, the work of Head (2013) provides a useful overview of the informationseeking behavior of university students. Among the findings reported: college students
use a consistent strategy that relies on the same few resources, students tremendously
underutilize librarians, ninety percent of students surveyed used libraries for certain
online scholarly research databases such as EBSCOhost or JSTOR, and students
frequently relied on course instructors for assistance in their research.
Cherry, Rollins, and Evans (2013) used their campus proxy server in a study to
measure the correlation between GPA and electronic resource use for a semester. The
data demonstrated that students with higher GPAs tended to log in at least once to the
library’s resources and were more likely to use the resources frequently, providing
evidence that these are positively correlated.
Tury, Robinson, and Bawden (2015) surveyed 649 students in 81 countries and then
selectively interviewed four distance learners to better understand their informationseeking behaviour. They found that ease and speed of access and familiarity of sources
are seen, for the most part and with important exceptions, as more important than
issues of quality, reliability, and comprehensiveness. Dew (2001) and McLean and Dew
(2004) surveyed off-campus students at the University of Iowa about library needs and
preferences. The off-campus students valued access to electronic resources highest,
followed by access to document delivery, followed by access to reference help, followed
by access to instruction. Hensley and Miller (2010) surveyed 146 distance learners on
their perceptions and use of library services. They found that distance learners were
making relatively robust use of electronic journals and course reserves, but few users
were making use of document delivery, instruction, or virtual reference services. They
also found that 73% of the distance learners were unaware of the expertise of subject
specialist librarians.
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Brooke, McKinney, and Donoghue (2013) surveyed distance learning students at a
United Kingdom university and distance learning support librarians in the United
Kingdom to understand best practices. When they asked students who had not used
distance services why they had not made use of the distance services, 77.8 percent of
students responded that they found information resources elsewhere, and 80 percent
stated that they lacked awareness of the service.
Pitts, Coleman, and Bonella (2012) surveyed distance undergraduate students, distance
graduate students, and faculty and instructors teaching distance classes about
awareness and usage of library resources at Kansas State University. They found “an
alarming number of students at both the graduate and undergraduate level expressed
little to no awareness or usage of any library resources or services. The vast majority of
distance students indicated they rarely used library resources, and instead favored ‘free
resources from the internet’ to conduct their research” (p. 144).

Methods
We developed a 13-question survey for Brandon University students. After receiving
approval from the Brandon University Research Ethics Committee, we sent out an email
to the campus asking if professors would let us into their classes to distribute the
survey. We received 18 positive responses from professors and distributed the survey
to 25 classes in person in December 2013 and January 2014. The questions asked can
be found in Appendix A.
In February and March of 2014, nine of the 18 professors of the classes to which we
distributed the surveys agreed to be interviewed by us. The choice and consent to be
interviewed was the professor’s. The semi-structured interviews covered the same
subjects as the surveys but in a more free-form manner. The initial questions we used in
these interviews are included in Appendix B.
357 students answered the student survey. Enrolment in all 25 classes totaled 804
students, so the apparent response rate was 44.4%. However, some students were not
in class when the survey was handed out. Some students could have been enrolled in
multiple classes. Therefore, a response rate of 44.4% is just an estimate. Because we
were limited to handing out surveys in the classes of professors who agreed to help us,
we had no control of the distribution of the students answering the survey. The 357
students that returned the survey are not a representative sample of the Brandon
University student population as a whole. Any results of the survey can therefore not be
generalized beyond the participants of the survey.
The survey asked students to judge how they were affected by the loss of access. This
judgement will be affected by the student’s memory, the choices of the survey, and
perhaps a subconscious attempt to please the researchers. The answers are qualitative
rather than quantitative. Not all students answered all the questions. Even within these
limits, we believe the data are meaningful.

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Objective Measures
While there is evidently a decline in the use of library resources in October and
November of 2013 as compared to October and November of 2012 (see table 1), it is
difficult to ascribe that decline wholly to the loss of off-campus access. The first problem
is establishing a baseline of what use of the library resources would have been had offcampus access not been lost. In the case of borrowing library material, the general
trend has been downwards since 2005. In the case of full text downloads, both from
EBSCOhost (which hosts our most used general purpose databases) and from
scholarly journals (from 17 different platforms, the same platforms for all years to keep
the comparison constant), the number of downloads follows no particular pattern from
year to year. Sometimes the numbers are up a little, sometimes down a little. The
second major problem is that a faculty strike in 2011 caused the usage of all library
resources to decline sharply in this time period.
To create a baseline for the library usage in October and November, we created a
weighted average of the library usage from 2009, 2010 and 2012. The weighting was (1
x 2009 usage numbers + 2 x 2010 usage numbers + 3 x 2012 usage numbers)/6. We
chose this weighting system because it gives more weight to the more recent year in the
expectation that the 2012 usage numbers are more predictive of the 2013 usage
numbers without omitting the 2010 and 2009 usage numbers. It also omits the
anomalous 2011 usage numbers. The weighting system is an imperfect representation
of library usage, but it provides a useful perspective beyond a direct comparison with
only 2012 usage numbers. Comparisons to the weighted averages show a sharper
decline in usage for both the number of library loans and full-text downloads from
EBSCOhost, but the number of downloads from scholarly journals is close to being the
same. The data are never going to be explicitly clear.
Interestingly, the 2014 statistics showed that library circulation continued to decrease in
these two months while the number of EBSCOhost full text downloads rebounded
slightly and the number of full text downloads directly from scholarly journal publishers
dramatically increased by 25%. These two-month trends reflect the overall yearly library
statistics for 2014, where circulation was more or less steady (up by 1% from 2013), full
text downloads from EBSCOhost were up by 11% from 2013 and full-text downloads
directly from scholarly publishers were up by 20%.
Table 1
Comparison of Library Circulation in October and November 2009-2014
Time
October/November 2009
October/November 2010
October/November 2011
October/November 2012
October/November 2013

Library
Circulation
8035
8079
3759
5372
4542
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Time

Library
Circulation

Decline from 2012 to 2013
Weighted Average of 2009, 2010, 2012
Percent Decline to 2013
October/November 2014
Change from 2013 to 2014

-15%
6718.17
-32%
4422
-3%

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Table 2
Comparison of Full Text Resources in October and November 2009-2014
Time

EBSCOhost
Full Text

Scholarly Journals
Full Text

October/November 2009
October/November 2010
October/November 2011
October/November 2012
October/November 2013
Decline from 2012 to 2013
Weighted Average of 2009, 2010, 2012
Percent Decline to 2013
October/November 2014
Change from 2013 to 2014

17025
19219
10322
15531
14475
-7%
17009.33
-15%
15307
+6%

20084
17195
13267
24976
20902
-16%
21567.00
-3%
26198
+25%

We were not able to keep accurate gate counts because of a broken library gate and
can therefore not analyze if physical traffic to the library increased during this time
period. What we do have are the answers to the survey questions, which show that
19% of students reported that they spent a lot more time in the library due to the outage
and that 48% of students indicated that they spent at least a little bit more time in the
library, which would suggest that the loss of off-campus access to library resources
encouraged more students to come to the library. However, the number of reference
transactions recorded in the months of October and November was remarkably steady.
Table 3
Comparison of Reference Transactions in October and November 2009-2014
Time
October/November 2009
October/November 2010
October/November 2011
October/November 2012
October/November 2013
Decline from 2012 to 2013
Weighted Average of 2009, 2010, 2012
Percent Decline to 2013
October/November 2014
Change from 2013 to 2014

Reference
Transactions
490
458
188
456
454
-0.4%
462.33
-1.8%
440
-3%

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Results of the Student Survey
245 students of the 356 students surveyed (68.6%) reported being affected by the loss
of off-campus access to library resources (see Table 4). 1 student did not fill out the
question.
Table 4
Effect of the Problem
Effect

Frequency

Percent

111
133
64
48
1
357

31.1
37.3
17.9
13.4
n/a
100.0

It hasn't affected my ability to do my assignments
It has affected my ability to do my assignments a little
It has affected my ability to do my assignments noticeably
It has affected my ability to do my assignments a lot
Did not fill out the question
Total

111 students of the 357 students surveyed (31.1%) reported that they were not affected
by the loss of off-campus access to library resources. The most common reasons given
for this were “I didn’t have any assignments that needed library resources” (70 of 111,
63.1%) and “I could do my research through Google and didn’t need the library
resources” (41 of 111, 36.9%). Students could give more than one answer to this
question. Table 5 summarizes the reasons.
Table 5
Reasons Why Students Reported the Loss of Off-Campus Did Not Affect Their Ability
To Do Assignments
Reason
I didn’t have any assignments that needed library resources
I could do my research through Google and didn’t need the library
resources
I could do my assignments with books and articles I already had
I could do all my research in the library or the computer labs on
campus
I could do my assignments with books and articles I got from my
professors
I live in residence
I could do my assignments with books and articles on reserve at the
library
I could do my assignments with books and articles I got from other
students
I could do my assignments with the EBSCOhost username and
password that I got

Frequency

Percent

70
41

63.1
36.9

24
20

21.6
18.0

11

9.9

9
6

8.1
5.4

4

3.6

1

0.9

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Table 6 shows a strong relationship between students reporting being affected by the
loss of off-campus access to library resources and their reporting coming to the library
to research. This relationship is a significant one (chi square test, df=2, p<.02). When
students report that lack of access affects them “noticeably” or “a lot,” over 70 percent of
the students report coming to the library for research. Students who reported not being
affected by the loss of off-campus access did not answer this question.
Table 6
Effect of the Problem Cross Tabulated with Students Doing Research in the Library
Effect of the Problem

Frequency

Came to the Library
Percent
to do Research

It has affected my ability to do my
assignments a little

133

76

57.1

It has affected my ability to do my
assignments noticeably

64

50

78.1

It has affected my ability to do my
assignments a lot

48

34

70.8

245

160

65.3

Total

This contrasts with what the affected students reported when asked if they came to the
library more often. This had a much stronger relationship with the students reporting
being affected by the loss of off-campus access to library resources (chi square, df=6,
p<.01). The more the students reported being affected by the loss, the more likely they
were to report spending more time in the library (see Table 7). Students who reported
not being affected by the loss of off-campus access did not answer this question.

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Table 7
Effect of the Problem Cross Tabulated with Students Spending More Time in the Library
Frequency

A lot more
time

A little
more time

Same
amount of
time

Never in
library

It has affected my
ability to do my
assignments a
little

129

14
(10.9%)

59
(45.7%)

54
(41.9%)

2
(1.6%)

It has affected my
ability to do my
assignments
noticeably

63

25
(39.7%)

26
(41.3%)

11
(17.4%)

1
(1.6%)

It has affected my
ability to do my
assignments a lot

47

26
(55.3%)

13
(27.7%)

7
(14.9%)

1
(2.1%)

68
104
(27.8%)
(42.4%)
Table 7 note: 6 students did not fill out the question.

83
(33.9%)

4
(1.6%)

Effect of the
Problem

Total

239

An interesting result was that the year of the student had a significant relationship (chi
square, df=20, p<.01) with the level they reported being affected by the loss of offcampus access to library services. Students in their first year reported being less
affected by the loss, while students in their third and fourth year were more affected by
the loss (see Table 8). If one compares the decrease in percentage in the responses to
“It hasn’t affected my ability to do my assignments” to the increase of the sum of the
percentages of “It has affected my ability to do my assignments noticeably” and “It has
affected my ability to do assignments a lot,” one sees a crossing decrease/increase
pattern as in Chart 1.

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Table 8
Year of Student Cross Tabulated with Effect of Problem
Year of
study

Hasn't affected
ability to do
assignments

Has affected
ability to do
assignments
a little

Has affected
ability to do
assignments
noticeably

Has affected
ability to do
assignments
a lot

Total

First

46
(42.2%)

44
(40.4%)

9
(8.3%)

10
(9.2%)

109

Second

25
(32.5%)

30
(40.0%)

14
(18.2%)

8
(10.3%)

77

Third

17
(23.3%)

27
(37.0%)

21
(28.8%)

8
(11.0%)

73

Fourth or
more

19
(21.6%)

31
(35.2%)

17
(19.3%)

21
(23.9%)

88

Master's
student

2
(28.6%)

1
(14.3%)

3
(42.9%)

1
(14.3%)

7

Total

111
(31.3%)

133
(37.6%)

64
(18.1%)

48
(13.6%)

354

Table 8 note: two students did not fill out their year and one student did not answer if it
had affected the student’s ability to do his or her assignments.

Chart 1: Year of Student vs. Effect on Assignments
We also examined if there was a relationship between the declared major of the student
and the effect on the assignments. There was no statistically significant effect. Table 9
summarizes the data:
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Table 9
Year of Student Cross Tabulated with Effect of Problem

Major

Hasn't affected
ability to do
assignments

Has affected
ability to do
assignments
a little

Has affected
ability to do
assignments
noticeably

Has affected
ability to do
assignments
a lot

Total

Arts

20
(20.6%)

35
(36.1%)

21
(21.6%)

21
(21.6%)

97

Science

54
(39.1%)

46
(33.3%)

22
(15.9%)

15
(10.9%)

138

Health
Studies

16
(25.8%)

29
(46.8%)

8
(12.9%)

9
(14.5%)

62

Education

12
(37.5%)

12
(37.5%)

7
(21.9%)

1
(3.1%)

32

Music

2
(33.3%)

3
(50.0%)

1
(16.7%)

0
(0.0%)

6

Other

7
(31.8%)

8
(36.4%)

5
(22.7%)

2
(9.1%)

22

111
(31.1%)

133
(37.3%)

64
(17.9%)

48
(13.4%)

356

Total

Table 9 note: One Science student did not answer the question. The other category
includes undeclared, music education and the combined major of arts and sciences.
The students were asked what databases they regularly used in their research (they
could indicate as many as they used). When compared with the student’s reported
effect on assignments caused by the loss of off-campus access, there was a significant
relationship between the regular use of EBSCOhost (chi-square, df=3, p<.01), JSTOR
(chi-square, df=3, p<.01), Google (chi-square, df=3, p<.01), and the library catalogue
(chi-square, df=3, p<.01) (see Table 10). There was no significant relationship with
regular use of Web of Science. In the cases of EBSCOhost, JSTOR, and the library
catalogue, the general rule is that the more the students regularly used the resource,
the more likely they were to be affected by the loss of off-campus access. The
relationship with the regular use of Google is not as clear, although it is noteworthy that
the highest percent of regular Google users were the students who were not affected.
We asked about Google as it was the only resource that was not affected by the loss of
access to on-campus resources and is widely used by students (Connaway et al.,
2017).

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Table 10
Regular Use of Library Databases Cross Tabulated with Effect of Problem
Effect

Total

JSTOR

It hasn't affected my
ability to do my
assignments

EBSCO
host

Web of
Library
Google
Science
Catalogue

111

41
(37%)

16
(14%)

13
(12%)

74
(67%)

15
(14%)

It has affected my
ability to do my
assignments a little

133

99
(74%)

26
(20%)

20
(15%)

59
(44%)

43
(32%)

It has affected my
ability to do my
assignments
noticeably

64

49
(77%)

22
(34%)

10
(16%)

36
(56%)

32
(50%)

It has affected my
ability to do my
assignments a lot

48

35
(73%)

20
(42%)

9
(19%)

19
(40%)

25
(52%)

356

224
(63%)

84
(24%)

52
(15%)

188
(53%)

115
(32%)

Total

Table 10 note: one student did not answer if it had affect the student’s ability to do his or
her assignments
We asked the students who were affected by the loss of access what they were not able
to do because of the lack of access. The results are summarized in Table 11. The two
most common activities that the students were unable to do were finding journal articles
for their assignments (79% of responding students) and using Moodle (71% of
responding students). Comparatively, not being able to use the library catalogue was
only indicated by 37% of responding students.

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Table 11
What Students Were Not Able To Do Because of the Loss of Off-Campus Access
Task

Indicated Indicated
Yes
No

Percent
Yes

Find journal articles for my assignments

195

51

79.3

Use the library catalogue to search
for library books for my assignments

91

155

37.0

Use RefWorks to create
bibliographies for my assignments

38

218

14.8

Place Interlibrary loan requests

25

221

10.2

Use Moodle

175

71

71.1

Use Naxos to listen to music

8

238

3.3

Other

52

194

21.1

Table 11 note: This question was only answered by the 246 students who answered
that they were affected by the loss of access.
We asked the students what actions they took because of the loss of off-campus
access. The results are summarized in Table 12. The most common action the students
took was to come to the library to do their research, which 67% of the responding
students reported doing. This contrasted with the 34% who used only what they could
access from home. An interesting result was that only 10% asked their professor for
help and only 13% asked other students for help.
Table 12
What Actions Students Took Because of the Loss of Off-Campus Access
Action

Indicated
Yes

Indicated
No

Percent
Yes

Came to library to do my research
166
80
67.5
Came on campus to access wireless
89
157
36.2
Used only what I could access from home
83
163
33.7
Asked my professor for help
25
221
10.2
Asked other students for help
32
213
13.1
Used books and/or articles I already had
56
190
22.8
Table 12 note: This question was only answered by the 246 students who answered
that they were affected by the loss of access.
As might be expected, the students’ use of library resources before the loss of offcampus access has a significant relationship (omitting the masters students because
there are too few of them, chi square, df=16, p<.01) with the students’ reported effect on
assignments caused by the loss. We chose the term “library resources” even though it
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Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, vol. 14, no. 1 (2019)

is a vague term because we wanted the students to define in their minds what library
use was for this question. As a rule, the more the student used library resources, the
more the student was affected by the loss (see table 13).
Table 13
Frequency of Library Resource Use Cross Tabulated with Effect of Problem
Hasn't
affected
ability to do
assignments

Has affected
ability to do
assignments
a little

Has affected
ability to do
assignments
noticeably

Has affected
ability to do
assignments
a lot

Total

Daily

7
(11.7%)

16
(26.7%)

22
(36.7%)

15
(25.0%)

60

More than 2
times per
week

17
(17.9%)

44
(46.3%)

19
(20.0%)

15
(15.8%)

95

Once a
Week

10
(17.0%)

29
(49.2%)

11
(18.6%)

9
(15.3%)

59

Less than
once a week

18
(35.3%)

22
(43.1%)

7
(13.7%)

4
(7.8%)

51

Once per
month

26
(55.3%)

17
(36.2%)

3
(6.4%)

1
(2.1%)

47

Never

33
(75.0%)

5
(11.4%)

2
(4.6%)

4
(9.1%)

44

Frequency

111
133
64
48
356
(31.1%)
(37.4%)
(18.0%)
(13.5%)
Table 13 note: one student did not answer if it had affected the student’s ability to do his
or her assignments.
Total

Not surprisingly, there was a significant relationship between how affected the student
felt by the loss of off-campus access to library resources and whether the student asked
for an extension or change to an assignment (chi-square, df=8, p<.01). The greater the
student was affected by the loss, the more likely the student was to ask for an extension
or a change (see Table 14). Students who reported not being affected by the loss of offcampus access did not answer this question.

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Table 14
Effect of the Problem Cross Tabulated with Students Asking for an Extension or Change
to an Assignment
Asked for an
extension or change

Didn't ask for an
extension or change

Total

It has affected my ability to do
my assignments a little

18
(13.5%)

115
(86.5%)

133

It has affected my ability to do
my assignments noticeably

18
(28.1%)

46
(71.9%)

64

It has affected my ability to do
my assignments a lot

24
(50.0%)

24
(50.0%)

48

62
(17.4%)

294
(82.6%)

356

Effect

Total

One of the options given students to help with the problem was a username and
password to EBSCOhost, which could be used off-campus and allow the student to use
all the EBSCOhost resources. Of the students who reported being affected by the loss
of off-campus resources, there was a significant relationship between how affected the
student was and whether the student asked for the EBSCOhost username and
password (chi-square, df=6, p<.01). The greater the student was affected by the loss,
the more likely the student asked for the EBSCOhost username and password (see
Table 15).
Table 15
Effect of the Problem Cross Tabulated with Students Asking for an EBSCOhost
Username and Password
Student asked for
EBSCOhost
credentials

Student did not ask
for EBSCOhost
credentials

Total

It has affected my ability to do
my assignments a little

11
(8.6%)

117
(91.4%)

128

It has affected my ability to do
my assignments noticeably

11
(18.0%)

50
(82.0%)

61

It has affected my ability to do
my assignments a lot

15
(31.9%)

32
(68.1%)

47

199
(83.9%)

236

Effect

37
(16.1%)
Table 15 note: nine students did not fill out the question.
Total

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Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, vol. 14, no. 1 (2019)

Summary of Faculty Interviews
Nine professors agreed to be interviewed about the events. The professors were from
the Departments of History and Political Science in the Faculty of Arts, the Departments
of Applied Disaster and Emergency Studies, Biology (2 professors), and Geology from
the Faculty of Science, the Department of Music Education in the School of Music, the
Department of Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Education, and the Department of
Nursing in the Faculty of Heath Studies.
All of the faculty interviewed had assignments that fell during the affected period. In
some cases, the assignments were due during the affected period; in other cases, the
assignments were due a short time after. The assignments were primarily research
papers for upper-year classes, although other kinds of assignments included class
presentations, research posters, and participation in a mock debate. The research
papers usually contained stipulations about including a certain number of references to
peer-reviewed research articles.
The faculty certainly perceived that the students were affected by the loss of off-campus
access to library resources, although, since this loss also encompassed the loss of
access to electronic learning tools such as Moodle, the effect on the students was
amplified. In some cases, professors had to adjust their syllabi because the students
could not prepare for a given day’s class. Some professors emailed material directly to
the students. While professors did not change their assignments, most of them did grant
extensions to individual students or an entire class.
Some professors reported seeing the impact of loss of off-campus access to library
resources in the quality of the assignments submitted by the students. More than one
professor noticed a more pronounced use of freely available non-academic sources
such as Wikipedia and blogs. Another professor noted that many assignments came in
late and the number of students that dropped the class was larger than usual, although
that may not be directly related to library access. Some students complained to a
professor about the high cost of articles that they found and felt they had to buy. The
professors also noted that the whole situation was a source of stress and frustration for
the students and that the first-year students felt the stress more keenly than the upperyear students. Professors also noted that students who lived outside the city limits of
Brandon or Winnipeg were at a greater disadvantage because it was harder for those
students to physically use the library. Some professors noted that there were students
who did not know that the library resources were available to students when the
students were on campus.
Professors noted that students expect seamless 24/7 access to library resources and
electronic learning tools. Professors also told us that students cannot always reschedule
their other activities, such as work or family. They rely on resources being accessible
when they need them to be and it adds to their stress when they are not.
The professors’ own research was not greatly affected, except for one, who usually
does research from home. Since the professor could only access research from on
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Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, vol. 14, no. 1 (2019)

campus, the professor would work from their campus office, where students would often
interrupt. Many of the professors told us that it was very inconvenient for them not to be
able to access, change, or post class materials to Moodle from home.
All professors emphasized that in situations like these, timely and complete
communication from the university is vital. The professors are often the first people to
whom the students will ask questions. The professors want to give clear answers, not
just to questions about assignments and course readings, but also about the situation in
general.

Conclusion
In an ideal world, we would not have been able to do this study. We hope never to be
able to gather the same kind of data. Although it has been five years since the event
took place, we believe that this is a unique event that is not described in library
scholarship. It can provide insights into off-campus student library use and how to
provide library service in an extreme situation.
Now that we have examined the data, we can make some conclusions. Only 31% of the
students surveyed reported that it had not affected their ability to complete their
assignments, and of those 31%, only 37% said they only needed Google and freely
related resources. Put another way, only 41 out of 287 (14%) surveyed students
reported that they only needed Google and freely available resources on the internet.
Therefore, we can confidently write that the convenience hypothesis, that the general
use of Google and freely available resources on the internet is sufficient for library
resources, has been rejected. Students needed more than just Google and freely
available resources. Off-campus access to library resources is vitally important to some
of our students, and any loss of that access is hardship to those students.
There is a large percentage of students who were not affected or barely affected by the
loss of off-campus access. 31% of surveyed students were not affected, and 37% of
surveyed students were only affected a little. One explanation is that these students
were very reliant on their course instructors for access to the material they needed for
their courses. Of the 31% of surveyed students who were not affected, 69% reported
that they did not need library resources at all. Another explanation is that they were not
aware of any off-campus library resources or even what library resources exist. These
explanations are consistent with other surveys of off-campus library resource use when
there has not been a concomitant marketing effort to off-campus students (Bonella,
Pitts, & Coleman, 2017; Brahme, Bryant, & Luscinski, 2018). It is possible that the
increasing use of open access resources could reduce off-campus students’ need to
use licensed library resources. It is also possible that students who are not as sensitive
to the ethical sourcing of their resources could use Sci-Hub, which would obviate the
need for licensed library resources. This last possibility should be a focus of student
education, so that they use ethical resources.
Because we were taken by surprise by the situation, our measurements were cruder
and more limited than if we had had time to prepare. An interesting longer-term question
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Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, vol. 14, no. 1 (2019)

would be tracking the off-campus students to see if the loss of access had any effect on
their subsequent university career, but that was beyond our scope.
The inverse relationship between the year of the student and the effect of the loss of the
off-campus access is interesting. It could be that first-year students at Brandon
University are less likely to be given assignments that require library resources, or that
first-year students chose to use Google as their primary search tool and were confident
in their ability to achieve acceptable results from that. More investigation seems to be
warranted.
We have also learned what we must do if we are faced with a similar situation. Some of
our library resources have changed so that they would not be impacted in the same
way. Our library catalogue is now a cloud-based service, so it would still be accessible if
the university’s servers were isolated. However, our proxy server and our Moodle server
are still hosted by the university. More robust solutions for these key infrastructure
services are needed, so that they are not dependent on access to one server in one
location.
In general, the conclusion is that the greater need the student had of library resources,
the more the student was affected by the loss of off-campus access. This conclusion is
not surprising, and, in some ways, is reassuring. When the systems fail, these students
could not fall back on Google and get the same results. We just have to make sure the
systems do not fail.

Disclosure
Author Rainer Schira is a member of Partnership’s editorial board as a layout editor. In
order to minimize any conflict of interest, this article was guest edited by Giovanna
Badia of McGill University.
This article went through the same double-blind peer review process as all other articles
in this journal.

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Appendix A – The Research Questions
This survey is to understand if you changed your research habits, due to the loss of offcampus library access. This survey is only interested in your research and not in your
use of Moodle, the S-drive or any other BU online system that was down.
1. What year are you in?
a. First
b. Second
c. Third
d. Fourth or more
e. Master’s Student
2. What faculty or school are you in?
a. Arts
b. Science
c. Health Studies in Brandon
d. Health Studies in Winnipeg
e. Education
f. Music
g. I haven’t chosen one yet
3. Before the loss of off-campus access, how often did you come into the BU
library?
a. Daily
b. more than 2 times a week
c. once a week
d. less than once a week
e. once per month
f. never
4. Before the loss of off-campus access, how often did you access the library
resources though the library website?
a. Daily
b. more than 2 times a week
c. once a week
d. less than once a week
e. once per month
f. never

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5. Which databases do you regularly use for your research? (Check all that you
use)
a. Ebscohost
b. JSTOR
c. Web of Science
d. Google
e. Google Scholar
f. Library Catalog
g. None of the above
6. How much has not being able to access library resources like Ebscohost or
JSTOR from off campus affected your ability to do your assignments?
a. It hasn’t affected my ability to do my assignments
b. It has affected my ability to do my assignments a little
c. It has affected my ability to do my assignments noticeably
d. It has affected my ability to do my assignments a lot
If the student answers (a) above they are directed to question 7 otherwise they are
directed to question 8
7. Why weren’t you affected by the problems with off-campus access? (Check all
that apply)
a. I live in residence
b. I didn’t have any assignments that needed library resources
c. I could do all my research in the library or the computer labs on campus
d. I could do my research through Google and didn’t need the library
resources
e. I could do my assignments with the Ebscohost username and password
that I got
f. I could do my assignments with books and articles I already had
g. I could do my assignments with books and articles on reserve at the
library
h. I could do my assignments with books and articles I got from other
students
i. I could do my assignments with books and articles I got from my
professors
The student is finished if he or she answers question 7.

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Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, vol. 14, no. 1 (2019)

8. What weren’t you able to do because of the lack of off-campus access to library
resources? (Check all that apply)
a. Find journal articles for my assignments
b. Use the library catalogue to search for library books for my assignments
c. Use RefWorks to create bibliographies for my assignments
d. Place Interlibrary loan requests
e. Use Moodle
f. Use Naxos to listen to music
9. Did you have to spend more time in the library than you usually do?
a. Yes, a lot more time
b. Yes, a little more time
c. No, I spent the same amount of time
d. I’m never on campus so I’m in the library
10. Indicate if you did any of the following, due to the lack of off-campus access to
library resources?
a. Came to library to do my research
b. Came on campus to access wireless
c. Used only what I could access from home
d. Asked my professor for help
e. Asked other students for help
f. Used books and/or articles I already had
11. Did you ask for an Ebscohost username and password?
a. Yes
b. No
12. Did you ask your professor for an extension or a change to an assignment?
(Check all that apply)
a. I asked for an extension
b. I asked for a change to an assignment
c. I didn’t ask for an extension or a change
13. Do you have any further comments?

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Appendix B – Semi-Structured Interview Questions for Faculty
Members
1. Did you have an assignment requiring library type research due during the time
when off-campus access to the library was lost?
a. Follow up question if is answer is no: Did you have an assignment due
after the outage ended that students might have worked on during the
outage?
2. Did students contact you about the effects of loss of off-campus library access?
3. What did they tell you?
4. Do you think students were affected by the loss of off-campus library access?
a. How?
5. How did you handle the assignment during the time?
6. Did you change any of your assignments due to the outage?
7. In your opinion, what did students do to cope with the situation?
8. Do you think the quality of student assignments was affected?
9. Was your research affected by the outage?

27