Academic libraries are places packed with information that can be tapped by students, faculty, and academics for exploration and research, and the buildings can be used as places to study and collaborate on multiple levels of educational structure. Academic libraries are also seen as intimidating edifices of overwhelming amounts of knowledge in a labyrinth patrolled by shushing librarians and, in more recent times, uniformed security. In addition to the physical buildings, libraries have expanded their reach through online catalogs and databases to maximize access. Having both physical and virtual access ensures that on-campus and distance learners can perform activities necessary to their course exercises.

​

Getting students into the libraries to conduct positive educational activities requires libraries and their institutions to actively encourage and nurture information-seeking behaviors and information literacy. Introductory sessions to these skills must be followed by opportunities for practice and honing. According to a study by Kuh and Gonyea, when a student perceives that their institution emphasizes information literacy and members of the institution actively require exercises in critical thinking, students gain more in these areas and feel better prepared when graduating (2015).

​

Librarians are, in many institutions such as the University of Kansas, increasing their contact with students by working with faculty to bring classes into the library for information-seeking or critical-thinking assignments that foster this perception. Library staff and faculty positions such as Student Outreach and Faculty Outreach can indicate an academic library’s intent to insert themselves into student education. Sanabria corroborates that collaboration of librarians with faculty is important to promoting student success as well as demonstrating the continued value of the library as an entity (2013).

​

Students, whether new to the academic library or returning students, must learn to navigate in a vast world of information, both credible and deceiving; and librarians can make an impact on their abilities to do so by being directly involved in the education flow. The function of the academic library must evolve as information format and access change over time.