Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Using Peers To Shed Light On Service Hours For Librarians, Hector Escobar, Heidi Gauder

Hector Escobar

Purpose: Public service hours for many academic librarians have changed within the last decade. As reference statistics have declined, so have job descriptions changed. We often hear terms like outreach, liaison work, embedded librarianship, consulting hours, scheduled appointments. etc., for what used to be normal desk hours. With a changing service model, comes accountability. How do institutions account for these new forms of work and duties that have replaced traditional service desk hours? How does this feed into performance or merit review?

The purpose of this short paper is to shed light on the roles of librarians at medium-sized universities, …

Tracking For Outreach: Using Data For Cross-Unit Purposes, Heidi Gauder, Hector Escobar

Hector Escobar

Purpose: Since creating an information commons a couple years ago, this library’s research team has been coordinating data gathering methods with the writing center. With both units using standard check-in procedures at a shared desk and hosting in-depth consultations in a shared space, it made sense to share technologies. Since Spring 2015, we have logged students for research consultations with software that is commonly used by writing centers, tutoring and other academic support units. We are not only able to count the number of consultations, but we are also able to record cross-referrals with the writing center, calculate average consultation …

On The “Write” Path To Student Learning: Library And Writing Center Collaboration, Hector Escobar, Heidi Gauder

Hector Escobar

This case study outlines considerations needed for libraries and writing centers to collaborate effectively and describes benefits derived from this arrangement.

Bird’S Eye View: Using Twitter In #Clubroesch, Katy Kelly, Hector Escobar

Hector Escobar

For many libraries, social media is usually another platform to share information about library resources and events. For some, the term has become overused so much that the social aspect has fallen by the wayside. Facebook page updates or tweets are only part of what you can bring to and achieve from social media. In this article we discuss how students communicate with our academic library on Twitter, and how we used conversations to improve library spaces, technology, and services. We will explain the process of tracking and responding to student tweets, as well as the pros and cons of …

Integrated Service Spaces: New Ways Of Assessing Collaboration., Hector Escobar, Heidi Gauder

Hector Escobar

Many academic libraries have participated in the growing trend in creating unified service desks, where users visit one desk to get help from a variety of library and other campus services. The University of Dayton’s Roesch Library, however, is exploring a different model. It is piloting a service that lends itself to true integration with external departments. Although unified service desks offer the convenience of one-stop assistance, the various units may still act as silos. Service integration facilitates better cross-training and less confusion for students who may need multiple forms of help in one common area. The library began to …

Using Assessment To Leverage Collaboration With The Campus Writing Center, Heidi Gauder, Hector Escobar

Hector Escobar

Purpose

Like many academic libraries, the University of Dayton’s Roesch Library houses a writing center. Currently located on the Library’s 2nd floor, it will soon move and become integrated with the library’s reference service. Since the writing center operates independently from the library (e.g., it is staffed by students and reports to different campus administrators), the library reference team, comprised of tenure-line faculty librarians, wanted to better understand writing center services. Given that research and writing are often intertwined, the library was particularly interested in learning how the writing center addressed the evaluation, integration and attribution of sources, tasks similar …

Write Together: Assessing Writing Center Data For Library Collaboration, Heidi Gauder, Hector Escobar

Hector Escobar

Two academic support units, the library and the writing center, will be co-located on the library’s first floor starting Fall 2014. With a mandate to integrate services, the library was particularly interested in learning how the writing center addressed the evaluation, integration and attribution of sources, tasks similar to the work of reference librarians. Learn how we analyzed the writing center’s consultant reports in order to gain a deeper understanding of their work and prepare for a more effective service integration.