Impact of library anxiety on user comfort with services and technology

Library resources and services can boost academic performance, but library anxiety may limit students’ willingness to utilize them. This study assessed the impact of library anxiety on user comfort with services and technology by applying Bostick's Library Anxiety Scale, which was adapted based on the academic library environment and included 48 items under five factors with a 5-point Likert scale. A survey was conducted among 406 students from five selected universities in Bangladesh. A multiple regression analysis was carried out, where affective, cognitive, and staff barriers were used as the independent variables, and comfort with services and comfort with technology were the dependent variables. Staff and affective barriers significantly impacted comfort with library services and technology. The cognitive barrier had an insignificant positive impact on services but a significant negative effect on technology. Various statistical techniques confirmed the modified model's sampling adequacy, reliability, and validity, which would encourage more research on evaluating anxiety in academic libraries regionally and globally.