Creating increased Library Engagement

1. Creating increased Library Engagement Useful tips for librarians LIS 652 4/22/14 Yvonne R. LaRoche-Pardo

2. CFCC Challenges: • 1. Student and faculty engagement. • 2. Budget issues. • 3. Implementing a new Integrated Library System that meets the needs of students, faculty and staff.

3. Increasing Student Engagement: • Make them aware of e-resources. • Use personalized library spaces. • Communicate with students (customers). • Make restrooms convenient/close to main entrance. • Have a café located off the lobby and allow covered drinks inside library.

4. Student engagement: • Make sure network connections are well maintained. • Make sure there are abundant light sources. • Control sound by ensuring no noisy overhead air ducts or gurgling water pipes to distract students. • Consider students’ time constraints and treat them respectfully. • Make sure the information desk has prominent signage.

5. Student engagement: • Offer a literature rack. • Instead of sending a student over to the reference desk, walk them over there and introduce them to the reference librarian so they feel welcomed and important. • Offer vending machines that dispense inexpensive flash drives, pens, and nonprescription pain relievers for those students who are there at night/on weekends.

6. Student engagement: • Be sure to develop and include instruction that is tailored for the following students: • - college-bound/transfer students • - developmental students • - early/middle college students • - ESL or English language students • - Trade/vocational students • - workforce development students

7. Make sure we don’t MAKE STUDENTS FEEL INTIMIDATED BY too many rules! Astor Library Cartoon by Chip.png

8. Offer some fun stuff,too! • Offer a couple of laptops set up with a game similar to the Jeopardy! game that contains questions pertaining to programs/courses offered at our college. • Offer a “nature trail” that guides new students through the library with stops at the reference desk, periodicals section, and other interest points. • Host a “treasure hunt” in which students examine library materials in exhibit cases to answer questions about a current library exhibit.

9. Create an Alternate Reality Game (“ARG”) • Offer a motivational prize for the winner of the game e.g. laptop, though everyone who enters gets put in a drawing for a chance to win it. • ARGs are when players pull together real-world events and places with virtual ones. • ARGs usually have a finite time constraint from beginning to end. • They are given cryptic clues/quests to lead them through the game. • ARGs encourage the use of diverse resources and are ideal for use in libraries.

10. Now, Onto Increasing FACULTY Engagement: • Attend faculty professional development committee meetings on teaching students to think critically. • Periodically host a free lunch in which we exchange information with faculty. • Invite faculty to speak to library staff about programs and library needs. • Have an appointed liaison who connects the library and faculty.

11. FACULTY Engagement: • Enroll in one of the professor’s classes! • Offer to have faculty member host a “term paper clinic” in the library or offer to do it for them if they so wish. • Create an information literacy workbook and web activities to supplement it. • Offer embedded librarians to faculty for online courses. • Build a relationship with a few faculty members and then use that to connect with other faculty.

12. FACULTY Engagement: • Be sure to help faculty conceive of the library as an information literacy initiative leader. • Provide instruction and instructional assessment that instills in faculty the fact that library-based resources are necessary for student success. • Market the library to faculty and offer instruction for literacies not always considered (technical, digital, network, etc.) so they think of us as a learning resources-centered model for literacy instruction (Crumpton, et al, 2013).

13. FACULTY Engagement: • Develop an informatics skills course. • In regards to distance learning, “Faculty are the conduit to distance education students, communicating with them about their students’ research needs and providing realistic responses to those needs is critical.” (Raspa, et al, 2000). • Develop web pages for specific classes, based on faculty suggestions. • Host an annual reading and language arts conference and include teaching faculty.

14. Citations: • Crumpton, M. A., & Bird, N. J. (2013). Information literacy. In Handbook for community college librarians. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited. • Raspa, D., & Ward, D. (2000). The collaborative imperative: Librarians and faculty working together in the information universe. Chicago, IL: American Library Association. • Snavely, Loanne (2012). Student Engagement and the Academic Library. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited. • Stoddard, S. (2014, ). Questions asked of librarians. Retrieved from RinkWorks website: http://rinkworks.com/said/libraries.shtml • Woodward, J. (2009). A great place to be. In Creating the customer-driven academic library (pp. 48-68). Chicago, IL: American Library Association.