Assessment Aha Moment #5: Market the library as a “time saver.”
DePaul University in
Chicago has over 50% of their students coming in as transfer students. Many of
them work full-time. They market the library as a time-saver. Students in one
study I heard about at the conference did not want to ask librarians for help,
since they wanted to seem self-sufficient. (This study used a technique of
having students draw a picture of their research process; the pictures were
mostly quite funny and showed things like “stress cleaning” and other ways of
procrastinating.) Unfortunately, this insistence on self-sufficiency leads to
some wasted time as they learn to navigate the library’s resources. I think
that instead of showcasing our many collections and databases, we need to reach
students at the bottom line: coming to the library and getting help here saves
time. Perhaps this is should be the first research question we undertake!
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