Library Outreach and Library Tours

Two months ago a student reporter named Layna Nelson requested a tour of the Eli M. Oboler Library.  She writes for the campus newspaper the Bengal.  I enjoy giving tours, but it seems that I could do better.  It seems that finding interesting statistics about the number of books, number of individuals accessing our databases, number of patrons entering the building, etc. might generate more interest.  Also, people like stories and attention-grabbing quotes, so digging up some useful things like that ought to liven things up on a tour.  Admittedly, the tours I give are maybe a bit dry, but they are laden with information.  What can I say?  I love the library.

Eli M. Oboler Library.  Idaho State University.
850 S. 9th Avenue
Pocatello, Idaho, USA 83209-8089

Today I finally learned that her article was published with the title "What's Inside: Oboler Library."  She wrote a great article.  She must have done a bit more digging to find the information at the beginning of the article, though it might not all be up-to-date.  As the Coordinator of Instruction, I feel responsible for outreach in the Library, so I am willing to offer tours of the Library, work with area schools, and try to get the word out regarding events we hold in the Library. 

Idaho State University Library.  Pocatello, ID

What kind of outreach are you involved with in your library?

To view more photos of Pocatello, including a few more of the Oboler Library, take a look at Vitit Kantabutra's site.

Facilities as Recruiting Points

A week or two ago I learned about a study that discovered the importance of facilities in recruiting prospective college students to campus. I needed that information again today, so I thought I'd share it with other in case they had not heard about it already:

The Impact of Facilities on Recruitment and Retention of Students
by David Cain, Ph.D. & Gary L. Reynolds, P.E.

Yesterday I attended a workshop on creating an emergency survival kit for the workplace, and the presenter happened to be one of our campus recruiters for the College of Technology. In fact one of his other recruiting colleagues also attended. As the Coordinator of Instruction I am also involved with outreach and coordinate tours and instruction for students in local high schools. Anyway, I thought to share one of our promotional brochures on the Library with him and all the other campus recruiters, reminding them not to forget about the Library in their conversations with prospective college students. Additionally, I invited them to work with me to schedule tours of the Library. Student opinions of the Library can influence their enrollment decisions as suggested in the above-mentioned article.

It interests me that attending a workshop introduced me to new people who gave me some new information and ideas on how I can help recruit college students, plus some tips on emergency kit items.

English 101 Class

So I have been teaching students in the library one-shot sessions for close to three years now, but I still get nervous. Preparation for this class began two or three weeks ago, but I still felt like I was scrambling to get ready. Last week I sent a tentative outline with some tentative worksheets to the instructor. He asked if this would include/allow for a "quick tour." Then I looked at his request a bit more closely and saw that he did ask for an introduction to the Library's resources, so a tour made sense, though I wonder if librarians know how to give a "quick tour." We love libraries, so where do we stop?

As with other classes, I asked for a list of student topics. Instead, the instructor gave me access to his Moodle course, which allowed me to go see students' posts within a class forum. This proved to be very useful. With the topics I chose one that allowed me to find a resource on three of our four floors (apparently there are not many books on human genetic engineering in our Special Collection = basement). With call numbers in hand, we went straight to the spot on the shelves where the resources could be found. This emphasized that items with call numbers can be found on all floors of the Library, so researchers to pay attention to the "Library Location" within the catalog.

Once we found and discussed the book a bit, I had students read previously printed questions, which just happened to be color coded. Students with a blue question read it aloud on the 3rd floor before I answered it. It did tax my memory to remember which floor went with which color; perhaps I should have written it out on my outline, which I did take with me. This livened up the tour a bit, and it even solicited a few extemporaneous questions. Many refer to this as the Cephalonian Method.

Admittedly, the tour was not so quick as I wished it would have been, but the instructor commented that he had never had one of classes take a tour, but he was glad we did it today. He thought that the questions would be used after my spiel, sort of as a review exercise, but he said that this actually worked better having students ask questions. It seems that students become owners of their questions, they get to hear someone else's voice, and they tend to pay a bit more attention.

Ideally, it works even better if you can insert a couple humorous questions, anecdotes, or bits of information on the tour. If you have any examples, please share. My tour spiel could use some improvement. I did not tell them everything I know about the Library, which is always tempting, but students do not remember it all anyway. It's good to emphasize to them to come ask us for help in case they do forget stuff.

During the class we also talked about the research process and looked up materials in our Library catalog, so this seemed to be a good course to follow for an English 101 class. The active-learning, Cephalonian exercise contributed to make the class a bit better.

Recommendation for Article on Library Scavenger Hunts

Since I am working with our First Year Seminar program to develop a library scavenger hunt, I decided to do a little research to see what has been written on the subject. ACRL's information literacy and instruction listserv has archived many of the responses from librarians around the country, but the archive is very unwieldy. When I accessed it I could only search from month to month. The search box would not allow me to search the whole archive. Who knows, perhaps they don't have a server that could accommodate many extensive searchers?

Academic Search Complete yielded a few results, but the most promising article was not available in full text. So I interlibrary loaned it--one of the first times I've used this service since working at ISU. Cheryl McCain wrote a well-balanced article for College & Undergraduate Libraries titled "Scavenger Hunt Assignments in Academic Libraries: Viewpoints versus Reality" (14.1: 2007, 19-32). Many librarians complain about library scavenger hunts, but they do not back up their complaints with any research.

Nearly every librarian knows that a scavenger hunt can be poorly developed; however, McCain's article cites one study that showed how a scavenger hunt actually taught more to students than a library tour. Groups and basic instruction helps in the assignment also increased the scavenger hunt's success. Not much as been written about scavenger hunts in the way of an actual research study, so this could be a great opportunity for an enterprising librarian to conduct such a study. Students and faculty often learn from the scavenger hunt and in the process become more comfortable and familiar with the building and its physical and virtual resources, which or worthy objectives in my book.

Freshmen Library Tours

New and eager students will flood the campus soon. This typically means high energy and excitement as well as a fresh round of library tours. Many libraries throughout the country have innovated in this area of freshmen orientation. Recently, several posts to the Information-Literacy and Instruction listserv have focused on the different ways librarians have introduced incoming freshmen to the academic library. At Cornell College's Cole Library in Mt. Vernon, IA, they give ice cream; cones were donated by a local bank wanting to get publicity. Peer tutors guided them to different "stations" of the library where they learned about the function of that part of the library and entered their names into raffles.

Students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Library divide into groups before they go to different parts of the library to answer questions. When they return, the larger group goes on the tour, and those students who answered questions give the tour to their peers while the librarian stands to the side, periodically contributing additional information. Students, then, teach each other about the library. Apparently, instructors and students have enjoyed this.

In the California State University at Stanislaus Library they will be playing golf in the library to help their students improve their putts and knowledge of the library building and resources. A guide shows them where to tee off, inserting useful information about the library. On the east coast, the University of South Carolina Upstate Library incorporates an iPod into the tour as well as a worksheet for them to fill out. Students must travel around the library and complete various tasks, including copy articles of interest out of encyclopedias, magazines, and reference books as well as answer questions regarding the library services and resources.

Here, at Idaho State's Oboler Library we conduct traditional tours to familiarize students with our library. We hope students will understand better what the library offers--more than just books--and have a positive experience that will draw them back to ask us questions and take advantage of the study space, the books, the computers, the videos, the services, etc. If you want a tour of the Eli M. Oboler Library, please contact me to arrange a time and date. jardspen(at)isu.edu

First Tour and Catalog Introduction

Five international students came to the library for instruction on the catalog and a tour of the library. Naturally, I was a bit nervous, but I had spent the morning preparing a handout the students could work on after I had given them a brief overview of the catalog. With time I am sure my presentation will be more smooth, but today's session certainly helped me see what international students may need help with.

A lot of them just needed help finding the "Search" button. In other words, after they key in a title or search phrase they could not find the search button. They also could have just pressed the "Enter" key. I thought I had shown them the line in the expanded record indicating the subject heading, but more than one student needed help finding that. I feel I could have done better explaining the different between the expanded record and the brief listing of results. Overall, I believe they understood how to use the catalog, but I am glad I had the worksheet and allowed them to search and ask questions along the way.

I used the Vision software to demonstrate how to use the catalog. There's more I would like to learn about this program.

In the last week, our OPAC committee changed the options for the catalog search. The default on the catalog page used to be "Search by Title," but now the catalog defaults to "Quick Search." I am still learning what this means. My supervisor tells me that it is the automatic "And," so a search for "James and the Giant Peach" would search for the words "James" first then "and" then "the." Apparently, it will only search among the first 10,000 records with the word "James." I thought the students today understood and were able to find things rather well.

With time I imagine my skills at giving a tour will improve. As it was, I felt like I wandered a bit. I'm glad they asked me questions, and I'm glad I asked the student working in the Copy Center if I had forgotten something. I forgot to tell them about how to request a book or article through Inter-Library Loan, which happens to be through the Copy Center. They really seemed to enjoy the Special Collections with all of its old books, photographs, and art books [the one in the shape of a shoe in particular]. It helped to have an outline of the tour written out that I could reference along the way to remind me what to mention. Next time I need to mention how much fines are.

As I look back on the worksheet I created it seems that I should have verified that the students answered the questions correctly. How are they to know if they are doing it right? Am I assuming too much if they do not ask any questions?