Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Patron Driven Programs: Successes And Lessons Learned From Turning The Library Over To Students For A Week, Mark Robison, Rachael Muszkiewicz

Library Faculty Presentations

While stress relief activities in academic libraries during finals weeks are nothing new, few libraries have experimented with turning the reins over to the students. Librarians at Valparaiso University initiated a two-round ideation and voting process for students to choose their own finals week programming. First, students were asked to generate ideas for the programs they wanted to see during finals week and to share them on whiteboards in the library lobby. Second, after the most prominent suggestions had been identified, students again used the whiteboards to vote for the top eight programs: four active and four passive.

Allowing students …