Student veterans in the academic library

Enrollment increases in the number of veterans returning from service in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars offer an opportunity for academic librarians to craft outreach programs that address their unique needs as they transition from military to academic life. Library information and research services can be highlighted and integrated into the support services for student veterans already in place at most academic institutions. This article provides a case study of the design and development of services and facilities to support student veterans, and it describes the evolution of library outreach to student veterans through direct campus collaborations.     

Cover Me,I’m going in: Exploring the needs of student veterans

Abstract

The number of military veterans taking advantage of post-911 educational benefits has increased significantly, and institutions of higher education have responded by creating veteran-friendly campuses. Accordingly, academic librarians have engaged in proactive, ongoing conversations about providing services to this unique student population. The authors went on reconnaissance to assess the needs of student veterans and their response to a recently created veterans lounge space in the library. The information gathered from this survey can help provide insight and possible strategies to improve library outreach and services.     

Library Connection: An Interactive,Personalized Orientation for Online Students

Library orientations are a very common learning experience for residential and online students. These all have similar goals of introducing students to the library and helping them feel more comfortable in navigating the library. The Library Connection is a unique type of library orientation that provides meaningful feedback to students in a personalized, connected learning environment. This program is offered through digital badges. A conventional qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the text responses of students completing this orientation. Six interesting themes emerged from these data including student perceptions of the use of the library, developing advanced search techniques, and managing a complex information environment. Interesting trends include the disparities between student and instructor perspectives of their learning and the need for a hybrid orientation that provides scaled instruction while still giving meaningful feedback and personalized responses to students from librarians.     

Play It,Learn It,Make It Last: Developing an Online Game to Create Self-Sufficient Library Information Users

ABSTRACT

Library orientation at an academic health sciences library consisted of a five-minute overview within new student orientation. Past experience indicated this brief presentation was insufficient for students to learn about library resources. In 2014, an effort was made to supplement orientation by developing an online game aimed at enabling students to become self-sufficient through hands-on learning. A gaming model was chosen with expectations that competition and rewards would motivate students. Although the pilots suffered from low participation rates, the experience merits further research into the potential of a broader model of online library instruction in the health sciences environment.     

High-touch,low-tech: Investigating the value of an in-person library orientation game

Since 2011, the Kraemer Family Library at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) has offered Scrabble Scramble, an in-person, student-centered library orientation game, to incoming first-year students. This article describes our journey of developing, assessing, and refining Scrabble Scramble, which focuses on introducing first-year students to the basic services and resources of an academic library. Through analysis of student and library staff feedback survey results, this article reflects on the value of offering a student-centered, impactful, and personal orientation in an environment of rising student enrollment, steady staff numbers, and a trend to move orientation activities online.     

Use of a Pre-Assessment Tool to Start a Meaningful Dialogue: New Paradigms in Library Instruction

In 2009, the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library started a library instruction dialogue with the medical students and faculty from the Emory School of Medicine. These discussions exposed a gap among faculty, students, and librarians in their perceptions of information processing. Follow-ups with the Associate Deans for Student Affairs and Medical Education led to the decision to administer an online assessment of the incoming student body and a complete redesign of the library orientation program. The aim of using self-assessment methodology in the framework of an orientation program was to set the students' foundation for self-discovery and introduce them to self-learning.     

Use of a pre-assessment tool to start a meaningful dialogue: new paradigms in library instruction

In 2009, the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library started a library instruction dialogue with the medical students and faculty from the Emory School of Medicine. These discussions exposed a gap among faculty, students, and librarians in their perceptions of information processing. Follow-ups with the Associate Deans for Student Affairs and Medical Education led to the decision to administer an online assessment of the incoming student body and a complete redesign of the library orientation program. The aim of using self-assessment methodology in the framework of an orientation program was to set the students' foundation for self-discovery and introduce them to self-learning.     

Crowdsourcing as an Approach to Customer Relationship Building in Academic Libraries

Library initiatives to first-year students not only present an opportunity to offer information literacy instruction for student advancement, but they also serve a key marketing function by communicating the library's ongoing value and building customer relationships. Library orientation tours are an example of how to effectively market to first-year students. Combining peer-to-peer learning and user-generated content via social media known as crowdsourcing, Newman Library sponsored a contest challenging first-year students to create a video sharing a useful library tip. The contributions and benefits of this cocreation approach to fostering relationships are examined, and the implications to strengthening other library-user bonds are explored.     

Redesigning library orientation for first-year medical students during the pandemic

Background:Prior to 2020, library orientation for first-year medical students at Weill Cornell Medicine took the form of an on-site treasure hunt competition. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the orientation for the MD class of 2024 was shifted to an all-virtual format. This shift mandated a full redesign of the library orientation.Case Presentation:The Samuel J. Wood Library sought to preserve the excitement and fun of the treasure hunt in the new virtual format. The competition was redesigned as a Zoom meeting using breakout rooms, with library faculty and staff serving as team facilitators. Tasks were rewritten, shifting the focus from the library''s physical spaces to its virtual services and online resources. The redesigned orientation was evaluated using two data sources: a postsession survey of student participants and a debriefing of the library employees who participated. Student evaluations were positive, while the faculty and staff provided numerous suggestions for improving future virtual orientations.Conclusions:A successful virtual library orientation requires careful preparation, including testing the competition tasks, full rehearsal with library facilitators, and a thoughtful approach to technology and logistics. We have chosen to share the materials we developed for other academic health sciences libraries that may wish to take a similar approach to their own virtual orientations.     

Insourcing library outreach: Engaging technical services in outreach to student organizations

Abstract

In recent years, library outreach has become an increasingly important aspect of public services work. In order to expand capacity and engage patrons, libraries should consider expanding their library outreach programs to include the efforts and expertise of technical services personnel. In this article, librarians from Texas A&M University will share how public services librarians, cataloging experts, and preservation librarians collaborated to provide support for a student-led textbook lending library for student veterans. Through this collaboration, the library was able to develop new outreach opportunities that highlighted technical services expertise as well as lend support to an important campus effort to improve the affordability of college textbooks for veterans.     

No more tours: how library tours of the past become today's celebrations

In 1999, Northwestern University's Galter Health Sciences Library redesigned the library orientation program for first-year medical students. Surveys indicated tours were ineffective and students retained little of the information presented. Furthermore, the tour was not related to the student's curriculum and did not reinforce their learning objectives. As a replacement, the library staff developed a self-directed two-hour library open house. Stations throughout the library showcased the library staff, services, and resources, focusing on the first-year student curriculum. A follow-up survey found this redesign more useful and relevant to the students' course work, indicating libraries should be creating more interactive tours for students allowing them to learn actively.     

The implementation of a large-scale self-instructional course in medical information resources.

The implementation of library orientation and bibliographic instruction in health sciences centers presents some interesting as well as perplexing problems. The Rowland Medical Library at The University of Mississippi Medical Center had to confront and reexamine these problems when faced with the requirement to teach 298 freshman and sophomore medical students in one ten-week quarter. This paper outlines the development and implementation of a large-scale self-instructional approach to library instruction. The package consisted of an audiotape, a videotape, a written program, self-teaching quizzes, a performance test, and a student evaluation. Performance test results and student evaluation data are presented which indicate that this format can successfully be employed to meet course objectives and to be accepted by students.     

Academic library use and student retention: A quantitative analysis

A key component of Vincent Tinto's model of retention is the importance of student integration in the academic institution. Library use can be regarded as a form of integration within such institutions. A quantitative approach was applied to demonstrate how institutional data can be combined to examine library use and retention at a single institution. Undergraduate student and library use data were analyzed to identify results that suggested associations between library use and student retention. Library use was measured by log-ins to electronic resources, as well as borrowing from the library. The undergraduate students enrolled for the first time in 2010 comprised the population, Sub-group student characteristics, age and socioeconomic status, underwent further analysis. The findings show retained students log-in to authenticated resources and borrow from the library at higher rates than withdrawn students. Mature age students withdraw from the university at higher rates than younger students. Log-ins to authenticated resources increase as students progress over time through their university programs. No notable associations were found among socioeconomic background, library use, and retention. For the institution, these findings can inform the development of library services to target specific student groups on the basis that higher library use may lead to improved integration and retention. In addition, the study describes a research design that is replicable in other institutions and contributes to library use and retention literature.     

Get to Know Your Librarian: How a Simple Orientation Program Helped Alleviate Library Anxiety

Library orientations do their part to familiarize students with information literacy, and how the library fits within university life. But what if an orientation could give a student a strong introduction to their academic librarians? Research in academic libraries has noted that library anxiety remains a continual problem among current students. Valparaiso University librarians created the Get to Know Your Librarian program, which sought to make librarians accessible. Using humor and casualness, incoming students were “introduced” to librarians through a series of fun facts. This simple program was successful in helping alleviate incoming students’ library anxiety before their first semester.     

The Impact Factor: Implications of Open Access on Quality

The Future Voices in Public Services column is a forum for students in graduate library and information science programs to discuss key issues they see in academic library public services, to envision what they feel librarians in public service have to offer to academia, to tell us of their visions for the profession, or to tell us of research that is going on in library schools. We hope to provide fresh perspectives from those entering our field, in both the United States and other countries. Interested faculty of graduate library and information science programs who would like their students’ ideas represented in these pages are invited to contact Nancy H. Dewald at nxd7@psu.edu.

Sara E. Grozanick is a student in the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the Pratt Institute, New York. Recognizing the significance of the Open Access movement to the advancement of scholarship, here she writes a bibliographic essay on research into the citation impact of open access journal articles.

The School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the Pratt Institute located in Manhattan and offering LIS education since 1890, features a curriculum based on Cultural Informatics and World Information, Society & Environments (WISE). The program reflects the arts orientation of Pratt and its alliance with cultural institutions in the city such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Public Library, and the Brooklyn Museum. The nearly 400 students who attend Pratt-SILS onsite have the opportunity to select a master's program resulting in a MS in Library and Information Science or a MSLIS with Library Media Specialist Certification, archives certificate, or dual degree programs resulting in a MSLIS/MS History of Art, a MSLIS/MFA Digital Arts, or a MSLIS/JD with Brooklyn Law School.

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军队院校图书馆服务基层部队的重要性及需要注意的问题

比较了《中国人民解放军院校图书馆工作条例》和《普通高等学校图书馆规程》关于图书馆职能的规定,探讨了军队院校图书馆服务基层部队的必要性与实施,指出了军队院校图书馆服务基层部队需注意的几个问题.     

Expanding the Role of the Student Desk Assistant in the Electronic Environment

Abstract

Fulfilling the “promise inherent in the student workforce” (Burrows 1995, 85) must be a collaborative effort involving the Library administration, Circulation staff, Reference librarians, and the students themselves. Advances in library technologies have dramatically changed the way that libraries do business. Just as access to Internet resources has widened the sphere of the Reference librarian, automation has expanded the role of the Circulation desk assistant in filling the information needs of library users. Library policy and training of student desk assistants must reflect the evolving electronic environment.     

An iPod (MP3) Library Tour for First-Year Students

This article describes the creation and evolution of an iPod (MP3) Library Tour and Assignment at the University of South Carolina (USC) Upstate. Designed as an integral part of the First-Year Information Literacy Program, the tour functions as an orientation to the layout of the physical library, including its collections and major service points. Issues addressed are the collaboration that led to the adoption of the tour, the results of a student survey that led to significant revisions, and the unique place of the tour's being required for a first-year program.     

Customized USB flash drives used to promote library resources and services to first-year medical and dental students

In line with its institution's commitment to keep new student orientation/welcome events "green," Columbia University's Health Sciences Library (HSL) applied for a National Network of Libraries of Medicine Middle Atlantic Region (NN/LM MAR) Small Projects Award(1) in Spring/Summer 2009 to explore paperless modes of outreach. This article describes the project that resulted from this funding, whose purpose was to determine whether customized 1 GB USB flash drives are a good vehicle for distributing library promotional materials to incoming medical and dental students. This project gave HSL librarians the opportunity to connect with students in a way that had not been done before and to consider how these new students use/view the information the library produces.