Impact of English-Language and French-Language Student and Faculty Populations on the Use of Online Databases in a Bilingual Canadian University

Abstract

This article reports the results of a quantitative study comparing usage rates between English- and French-language online databases at the J.N. Desmarais Library of Laurentian University, Canada. For Canadian institutions of higher learning, the comparison between English- and French-language services is particularly relevant in that English and French are considered to be the country’s two official languages. Overall, French-language online databases are used at very different rates by French-language student and faculty populations at Laurentian University compared to English-language students and faculty’s use of English-language databases. Where English-language student and faculty populations exhibit consistently strong and positive relationships with English-language online database use, French-language student and faculty populations exhibit the complete opposite with a consistently negative relationship with French-language online databases.