Racial differences in library anxiety among graduate students

This study compared the five subscale scores and total scale scores of the Library Anxiety Scale from 135 Caucasian-American and 45 African-American graduate students. Findings indicated that the Caucasian-American sample reported significantly higher levels of library anxiety associated with three of the five subscales than did the African-American sample. A canonical discriminant analysis also revealed significant differences between the two racial groups, with Caucasian-American graduate students reporting significantly higher levels of library anxiety associated with the same three subscales than their African-American counterparts. These findings suggest that race appears to be a predictor of library anxiety levels. The implications of the findings on academic library services and future research are discussed.