Creative Strategies for Effective and Engaging Student Employee Training: Helping Student Employees Engage, Grow, and Be Known

Is your library known as “the” place for students to work on your campus? Do your student employees get excited about “famous” annual training events in your department? Do your former student employees return years later to say hello because the library felt like their second home during college? Student employees are full of potential to become actively engaged participants in library operations and delivery of quality service. However, many librarians and library staff members struggle to motivate their student employees and help them see their employment as a highly valuable, formative work experience. The authors share some creative (and tested) ideas to improve and assess the student employee training experience. Ideas shared include annual training events held at the George Fox University Library like the Amazing Race, Turkey Bowl Team Competition, and more

Courseware in academic library user education: a literature review from the GAELS Joint Electronic Library project

The use of courseware for information skills teaching in academic libraries has been growing for a number of years. The GAELS project was required to create a set of learning materials to support Joint Electronic Library activity at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities and conducted a literature review of the subject. This review discovered a range of factors common to successful library courseware implementations, such as the need for practitioners to feel a sense of ownership of the medium, a need for courseware customization to local information environments, and an emphasis on training packages for large bodies of undergraduates. However, we also noted underdeveloped aspects worthy of further attention, such as treatment of pedagogic issues in library CAL implementations and use of hypertextual learning materials for more advanced information skills training. We suggest ways of improving library teaching practice and further areas of research

How the Open University library uses Facebook Live to reach, engage and support students

The Open University’s Library Services (http://www.open.ac.uk/library/) has a specialist team of 7 librarians, the Live Engagement team, who design and deliver real-time online teaching using Adobe Connect. There is a programme of generic library and module-specific sessions. Whilst we reach a lot of students through these sessions, we like to try out new ways of engaging with students and hope to reach those who don’t attend formal library training

Building Community: Synergy and Empowerment through Staff Development and Marketing in a Small Rural Academic Library

This paper presents two collaborative programs at a small academic library that leverage the insights, engagement, and interests of our most important asset: our staff. Two new library committees, the Staff Training Advisory Group and the Marketing Team, extended planning, accountability, and partnerships to paraprofessional staff members. The onset and associated activities of these two committees yielded not only direct results in terms of staff training programs and marketing initiatives, but also resulted in creating a more collaborative culture and shared purpose in our library. This paper examines how the overlap of these two committees created a convergence that fostered excitement about the library, interest in improving library roles, and furthering library initiatives. By working together, and with our university community, we developed solid, popular programs in addition to cultivating a more intentional, thoughtful, and inclusive approach to our work and, ultimately, to supporting our university community.published under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license (more details at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).Ye

Courseware in academic library user education: A literature review from the GAELS Joint Electronic Library Project

The use of courseware for information skills teaching in academic libraries has been growing for a number of years. In order to create effective courseware packages to support joint electronic library activity at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities, the GAELS project conducted a literature review of the subject. This review discovered a range of factors common to successful library courseware implementations, such as the need for practitioners to feel a sense of ownership of the medium, a need for courseware customization to local information environments, and an emphasis on training packages for large bodies of undergraduates. However, we also noted underdeveloped aspects worthy of further attention, such as treatment of pedagogic issues in library computer‐aided learning (CAL) implementations and use of hypertextual learning materials for more advanced information skills training. We describe how these findings shaped the packages produced by the project and suggest ways forward for similar types of implementation

Improving Student Training Through Computer-Based Tutorials

The use of computer-based training for student employees was explored through a recent project. Tutorials were designed and created using a free software program, Wink. The tutorials covered use of electronic resources and circulation programs and were used in training newly hired and continuing student employees. Written exercises requiring use of the information covered in the tutorials were administered subsequently. The advantages of computer-based training for aspects of student library employment were contrasted with its disadvantages. Computer-based training was found to be an effective part of training student employees

Educating and Training Library Practitioners: A Comparative History with Trends and Recommendations

published or submitted for publicatio

Gender-Inclusive Library Workgroup Report

The Gender-Inclusive Workgroup explored how VCU Libraries can better serve trans and gender-nonconforming users and staff. The group’s recommendations cover library spaces, staff, systems, services, and culture. Key recommendations include highlighting existing all-gender restrooms; building more gender-inclusive restrooms; expanding availability of menstrual products and disposal bins; continuing support for name-of-use changes in library systems; minimizing display of legal name in library systems; offering ongoing staff training in gender-inclusive language and customer service; and encouraging staff to share pronouns. The workgroup also recommends pursuing a culture of shared learning and inclusive thinking, with a reminder that gender identity is one facet of multiple intersecting identities for people in the VCU community