The DOI matches its Crossref record.
“We’re Gonna Figure This Out”: First-Generation Students and Academic Libraries
Abstract
Although extensive research has looked at first-generation college students’ experiences, little has examined the role of the library in their academic lives. This article reports the results of an exploratory study to better understand the experiences of first-generation college students at three universities. Key findings of this study focus on themes of self-advocacy, a sense of belonging, library customization, and integration of the library with the larger campus. This article discusses these themes in the context of improving library services and spaces, ultimately providing more inclusive resources for all student groups. Implications and recommendations for professional practice are discussed.
Overview
Integrity signals
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Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“These students reported that their use of the library space was directly influenced by how welcomed and respected they felt within that environment, especially when the space valued all their intersecting identities (Couture et al., 2021).”
From Finding Your Place: Assessing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in an Academic Library (2025) · cites this paper as Couture et al., 2021
Citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Finding Your Place: Assessing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in an Academic Library
Thomas, K., & Houlihan, M. (2025) · Evidence Based Library and Information Practice · doi:10.18438/eblip30569 · Cited by 1
Metadata
- Authors
- Couture, J., Bretón, J., Dommermuth, E., Floersch, N., Ilett, D., Nowak, K., Roberts, L., & Watson, R.
- Venue
- portal: Libraries and the Academy
- Publisher
- Project MUSE
- Published
- 2021
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 127-147
- ISSN
- 1530-7131 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3120584373
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 19.59
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- portal Libraries and the Academy (publishedVersion)
- CU Scholar (University of Colorado Boulder) (submittedVersion)
- Scholarship & Creative Works - Digital UNC a service of University Libraries (University of Northern Colorado) (submittedVersion)
- Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Library Science and Information Literacy
- Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Library Science and Administration
- Social Sciences › Education › Higher Education Research Studies
- Keywords
- first-generation college students, academic libraries, library services, library space, self-advocacy, sense of belonging, student experience
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
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Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: “We’re Gonna Figure This Out”: First-Generation Students and Academic Libraries. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1353/pla.2021.0009
- The paper
- Couture, J., Bretón, J., Dommermuth, E., Floersch, N., Ilett, D., Nowak, K., Roberts, L., & Watson, R. (2021). “We’re Gonna Figure This Out”: First-Generation Students and Academic Libraries. portal: Libraries and the Academy. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2021.0009
