September 2008 Archives

This week, ECAR released The Academic Library in a 2.0 World, a bulletin on the current and future role of academic libraries.

The report re-emphasizes points already made in the Horizon Report, the JISC report,  the Ithaka Report, the ACRL environmental scan... What it says (and what all of these other reports emphasized as well) is that the future role of the library does not reside in collection development and stewardship, but in supporting and enriching teaching, learning and research.  Here's a nice quote:

"In general, library services and staff must transition from their inherited position as the mediators of a print-focused, highly controlled environment to become collaborators in a multimedia-rich, user-empowered, disintermediated free-for-all where their value will be proven only by demonstrably improving outcomes in learning, teaching and research." (p. 2)

"A disintermediated free-for-all"...that captures what's happening online nicely.  I also like the term 'user-empowered', which brings to mind Scott McDonald's suggestion that libraries develop tools and expertise that help faculty "organize their digital intellectual lives." (You need to look down in the comments of that post for the discussion.) 

Here's one more quote, which fits beautifully in with a new project I'm proposing re: the libraries' role in helping students acquire digital literacies as part of the content creation process:

"The institution as a whole will need to embrace new critical literacies and core skills required for the teacher, learner, and researcher of the digital age.  Among other things, these will encompass multimedia creation skills, conventions of behavior in new communication media, computer-aided searching and data analysis skills, new ways to develop scholarly communication, and new ways of assessing student learning.  Most significantly, intensive new curricular support programs will be needed to train not only students but also faculty and staff in these skills, and the library should be a leader in this area."

Another successful Open House is over!  Our event was attended by over 3500 students this year.  It was a great opportunity to connect with students and help them learn more about our many resources and services.

After each Open House, we look at the student survey responses to assess the overall impact and success of the event, and begin planning for next year.  This year, we received 2845 completed surveys.  In 2007, we had 2827 completed surveys.  Because these numbers are so close, this provides a nice opportunity to compare the numbers over the last two years. 

Here are some in the initial findings that jumped out at me:

--The educational impact of the Open House continues to increase.  On the survey, students are asked if they strongly agree / agree, etc... that the Open House helped them learn more about the Libraries' collections, physical layout and resources, subject libraries, sources for help with research, and online resources.  Only 1% disagreed.  All of these areas experienced strong jumps (between 3% and 8% increase overall) in the number of students who strongly agreed that they learned more about these aspects of the Libraries.  Not huge jumps, but significant in showing that our event becomes more educationally focused and relevant to students' needs each year.  We have been working hard on this aspect of the event, and the improvement is very apparent.

--More students are attending the Open House because they want to--not because it is required for a course.  In 2007, 50% of students attending came primarily because "they wanted to know more about the library."  This year, it was 57%.  That 7% increase is pretty significant.  The students attending to win prizes also jumped--from 36% to 40%.

Last year, 75% of students attending also indicated that they were there because their CAS 100/ENGL 015/FYS instructor required it.  This year, that number dropped to 70%.  Yet, our overall attendance remained virtually the same as last year.  This tells me two things:  Our broad-based marketing initiatives worked.  We promoted the Open House in the HUB, in the dorms, in the Student Involvement Fair, in the Library, and distributed materials across campus.  This extra effort, expanded from last year, obviously paid off.

Somehow, though, we lost attendance from course instructors.  To me, this signifies that we need to ramp up our marketing efforts in this area next year.  We need to reach out to the course instructors more effectively, perhaps not just notifying them of the event, but also communicating the Open House learning outcomes in a more relevant manner.

And yet, the way in which students found out about the Open House----in class (77%)---was an increase over last year (73%).  I'm stumped.  If you're curious to see the rest of the responses (and the many great student comments), take a look at the full 2007 and 2008 results.

Overall, it was an absolutely fabulous time---wonderful to talk with so many students, terrific to have ITS/EGC/DC as part of our event this year.  And now, we get a short, well-deserved break before we begin planning next fall's Open House!

Did you come to the Libraries' Open House today?  I hope so!  We saw over 1500 students today---let's hope for over 2000 more happy student participants tomorrow.

Some photos from day one...