Organic Outreach for Academic Libraries: Collaborating with Student Affairs Units to Reach College Students

The college campus is a complex ecosystem of services and resources. Academic library outreach efforts offered in partnership with Student Affairs units can support the whole student as they navigate this ecosystem. This presentation offers one librarian\u27s experience collaborating with Student Affairs units such as health, counseling, and recreation centers. A mental model for this work that draws on the metaphor of organic gardening helps frame the remarks and reflections

Building a Library Renovation Website Using Public Relations Principles

Learn how James Madison University Libraries built an award-winning library renovation website using core principles from the field of public relations (PR). Key features include an interactive visual timeline (created with an open-source tool), a collection of memories of the library, and FAQs based on actual user questions

Undisciplined liaisons: Providing liaison librarian services to university units beyond academic departments

Can we sustainably extend liaison librarian programs beyond disciplines to include student affairs departments, student groups, interdisciplinary research centers, and other groups on campus? This roundtable explores the idea of expanding liaison programs to recognize the importance of holistic approaches to student development. Many libraries already have successful relationships with student support services, ranging from informal connections forged out of shared interests, to formal learning commons. Can creating broader liaison programs further contribute to student success

Re-Thinking Survey Promotion: It\u27s Not Just About the Numbers

Promoting a survey - it\u27s all about getting people to click on it, right? Not always. This session will describe the promotion campaign we designed for the James Madison University Libraries\u27 2015 LibQUAL+ survey. Ultimately, this campaign was not just about the survey - it was about how we want our campus to feel about the Libraries. Libraries commonly engage their user communities by gathering users\u27 feedback. Analyzing and acting on user feedback can lead to the responsive design and (re)development of library services, spaces, and programs. Our campaign placed that value of responsiveness front and center, with two taglines: Make Your Life Better. Take the Library Survey and Your Campus. Your Library. Have Your Say. To back up this bold claim that a library survey can improve one\u27s life, many of our promotional materials highlighted changes the library had already made in response to previous user feedback. And to help our message of being Your Library resonate with our campus community, we worked closely with a student employee with the wording of these taglines and on the graphic design. This partnership with a student allowed us to pilot-test a new idea of a street team of library student employees, who will help design and execute promotional and outreach work in an effort to develop more meaningful and active engagement with our user community. In this presentation, we will share some lessons we\u27ve learned from this survey promotion work and from our pilot test of this new street team. Included will be an assessment of which promotion methods were most effective, and a brief report on the results collected by the survey. Increasing positive sentiment about the Libraries was the real goal of this campaign. We wanted everyone who saw the campaign, whether or not they clicked through to the survey, to feel that the library is their library and to feel empowered to share feedback, now or in the future. We\u27ll discuss the creativity required in measuring that goal. This presentation will also touch on how engagement is a crucial part of a healthy assessment ecosystem that fortifies a cycle of measurement, results, action and engagement. Finally, session participants will be encouraged to reflect on and share how they are innovating in their promotion and outreach work, including survey promotion

Teaching Climate Change Concepts and the Nature of Science: A Library Activity to Identify Sources of Climate Change Misconceptions

A library activity was developed in which students found information about climate science misconceptions from popular and scientific literatures. As part of the activity, students developed a rubric to evaluate the credibility and type of literature sources they found. The activity prepared students to produce an annotated bibliography of articles, which they then used to create a training document about a climate science misconception for staff at a local science center. Evaluation of annotated bibliographies showed that students were able to distinguish between popular and scholarly literature but struggled to identify primary and secondary sources within the scholarly literature. In the training documents produced four weeks later, students retained information literacy skills and demonstrated aspects of scientific literacy, using language that addressed common barriers to scientific literacy such as the idea of scientific consensus. In self-assessments, students felt that they could identify and evaluate information resources related to climate science

Promoting Civic Engagement Through Academic Library Outreach Programs

How are Virginia\u27s academic libraries promoting civic engagement? This poster presents results of a statewide civic engagement survey and shares one academic library\u27s civic engagement outreach activities. Civic literacy competencies, such as the ability to contact representatives, are related to information literacy skills, and libraries should continue to promote them

JMU Libraries Magazine

This magazine describes highlights from the JMU Libraries from 2020-2021

Apple Slices: A Card-Matching Party Game about the Library

Inspired by the popular party games Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity, this is a fun and flexible small group activity developed for use in library orientation sessions

Play Your Cards Right: Creating a Library Orientation Game (poster)

A team of four librarians and staff drew upon previous experience with game-based learning to develop an orientation activity for transfer students. Apples to Apples -style cards were created using a free online card generator. The game exposed transfer students to information about the campus library system in a low-key way that allowed players with different knowledge levels to socialize and compete against one another on an equal basis

Creating a Library Orientation Card Game to Reach New Transfer Students

Librarians and staff at a public university drew upon previous experience with instructional games to develop, implement, and assess a card game as a library orientation activity for new transfer students. This project was shaped by a desire to meet transfer students’ unique needs as well as the logistical constraints associated with the university’s transfer student orientation. The card game, modeled after Apples to Apples, presented information about the campus library system in a fun, informal way that allowed transfer students to socialize with each other while learning. Survey responses indicated that students found the game both enjoyable and helpful