Building a Community of the Students, by the Students, for the Students

Author(s):  
Megan Stark ◽  
Samuel Meister ◽  
Wendy Walker ◽  
Asa Hohman ◽  
Mariah Williams

In recent years, the Mansfield Library has developed a strong interest in engaging its undergraduate student community. In addition to developing more events and programming specifically for undergraduates, librarians have pursued increased interaction with students via social media and through work with non-academic partners. And, like many academic libraries, the Mansfield Library has implemented an institutional repository for campus scholarship. This chapter will focus on the convergence of these endeavors and describe how librarians employed the institutional repository to more fully engage the undergraduate student body government.

Author(s):  
Kirti S. Celly ◽  
Charles E. Thomas

The purpose of this chapter is to share with a wide range of organizational professionals three methods we find useful for educating a diverse undergraduate student body. Using metaphors from business, participants in two undergraduate classes were invited to co-create value by positioning their work in the context of their career goals. Following a description of our purposeful design for participation, exploration, appreciation, reflection and learning (PEARL), we arrive at the fertile delta that nurtures learning and grows a crop of confident, competent, culturally sensitive, and ethical participants with a refined understanding of success. We use narrative inquiry of participants' writing to suggest that PEARL may be useful in arenas beyond the undergraduate business classroom as it is beneficial in the development of ethical, managerial, and leadership values.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 4-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Jo Catalano ◽  
Sarah Glasser ◽  
Lori Caniano ◽  
William Caniano ◽  
Lawrence Paretta

Abstract Objective – As academic libraries evolve to meet the changing needs of students in the digital age, the emphasis has shifted from the physical book collection to a suite of services incorporating innovations in teaching, technology, and social media, among others. Based on trends identified by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and other sources, the authors investigated the extent to which academic libraries have adopted 21st century library trends. Methods – The authors examined the websites of 100 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member libraries, their branches, and 160 randomly selected academic libraries to determine whether they adopted selected 21st century library trends. Results – Results indicated that ARL member libraries were significantly more likely to adopt these trends, quite possibly due to their larger size and larger budgets. Conclusion – This research can assist librarians, library directors, and other stakeholders in making the case for the adoption or avoidance of particular 21st century library trends, especially where considerable outlay of funds is necessary.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 228-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suha AlAwadhi ◽  
Sultan M. Al-Daihani

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the use of social media in the marketing of academic library resources and services in Kuwait and identifies the factors related to the use of social media applications in marketing academic libraries.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative data-collection approach using a paper and online questionnaire has been employed to elicit the opinions of librarians working in academic libraries in Kuwait in both private and public institutions. In total, 89 valid questionnaires have been analyzed using descriptive (frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations) and inferential statistics (factor analysis, correlations, experimental analysis and regression).FindingsThe study shows that the academic librarians have a positive perception toward the use of social media. The identified factors relating to the use of social media for marketing library information resources and services are the usefulness of social media tools in raising awareness and in providing needs analysis and satisfaction assessments. However, management support for the use of social media for library marketing is poor.Practical implicationsThis study provides insights into the factors related to the use of modern social media platforms to promote information resources and services at academic libraries to provide outreach services to current and potential users.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the field of information studies as it highlights the importance of using social media platforms in marketing academic library information resources and services. Library administrators could use the results to develop social media marketing plans to effectively promote their library resources.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
A. F. Tyson ◽  
Anton Angelo ◽  
Brian McElwaine ◽  
Kiera Tauro

Abstract Objective – Information literacy (IL) skills are critical to undergraduate student success and yet not all students receive equal amounts of curriculum-integrated IL instruction. This study investigated whether Facebook could be employed by libraries as an additional method of delivering IL content to students. To test whether students would engage with IL content provided via a library Facebook page, this study compared the engagement (measured by Facebook’s reach and engagement metrics) with IL content to the library’s normal marketing content.  Methods – We ran a two-part intervention using the University of Canterbury Library’s Facebook page. We created content to help students find, interpret, and reference resources, and measured their reception using Facebook’s metrics. Our first intervention focused on specific courses and mentioned courses by name through hashtagging, while our second intervention targeted peak assessment times during the semester. Statistics on each post’s reach and engagement were collected from Facebook’s analytics. Results – Students chose to engage with posts on the library Facebook page that contain IL content more than the normal library marketing-related content. Including course-specific identifiers (hashtags) and tagging student clubs and societies in the post further increased engagement. Reach was increased when student clubs and societies shared our content with their followers.  Conclusion – This intervention found that students engaged more with IL content than with general library posts on Facebook. Course-targeted interventions were more successful in engaging students than generic IL content, with timeliness, specificity, and community being important factors in building student engagement. This demonstrates that academic libraries can use Facebook for more than just promotional purposes and offers a potential new channel for delivering IL content.


Author(s):  
Helen Clough ◽  
Karen Foley

The Open University (UK) Library supports its distance-learning students with interactive, real-time events on social media. In this chapter the authors take a case study approach and concentrate on the examples of Facebook and Livestream to illustrate how live engagement events on social media have helped to build communities of learners in spaces they already occupy, raise the visibility of the library's services and resources with staff and students, and foster collaboration with other departments, while also being effective mechanisms for instruction. The chapter concludes with the library's plans for the future and recommendations for other academic libraries wishing to run live engagement events on social media.


2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (8) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
George Osas Eromosele

Purpose An institutional repository has become a new way of making the intellectual outputs of academic and research institutions electronically accessible in the online public domain. The outcome has led to users gaining remote access to varieties of digitized information that is hitherto locally resident before digitization in hardcopy form in the various information centre and libraries without users’ restrictions. This initiative has helped to enhance the open access inventiveness. Nigeria libraries are therefore taking up the challenge of computerizing their libraries and some have taken some steps to source the requisite funds to digitize and archive their library resources for easier Web-based access. Consequent upon this development, the University of Ilorin, embarked on digitization of its local contents such as Convocation Ceremonies; Government Publications; and Staff Publications and Theses and Dissertations, and making these local resources available online. This paper attempts to give a detailed account, step-by-step procedures and the various challenges faced in the process of building its online institutional repository and the way forward. The report in this paper gives insight into academic libraries intention to digitize their library resources, on the best way to go about it and also to avoid unnecessary hurdles. Design/methodology/approach To provide a thorough breakdown of the building of institutional repositories in the University of Ilorin, Library, webliography sources were consulted. Findings Some areas in service provisions need to improve upon, and these areas are search engine optimization by subscribing to handle.net, integration of Google analytics to check performance, sitemap features and highly secured (SSL and public key encryption. Originality/value This paper attempts to give a detailed account, step-by-step procedures and the various challenges faced in the process of building its online institutional repository and the way forward. The report in this paper gives insight into academic libraries intention to digitize their library resources, on the best way to go about it and also to avoid unnecessary hurdles.


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