Library Gazette

Over the past few months, Kevin and I have gotten together with a few sets of students to conduct some informal focus groups. The students we have spoken with, though a small group, have been from all years and from varying majors. Our aim is to better understand how our students find information, how they use our website to do so, and what we can do to make it easier for our students to get to the best information more quickly. As one of the participants said, “I mean, we live on our computers,” so understanding what they do on their computers can help us do our jobs better. These conversations have proven to be really valuable, so I thought we could share some of the themes and interesting ideas here.

The first thing we found was that the students don’t clearly separate the library as a place from the library as a web presence. We’d start talking about something on the site, only to find ourselves talking about the building a few minutes later. One library fact that a student shared was that “the state of the atrium defines the state of the library.” She said that if you walk in and the atrium is crowded, that you know there won’t be an outlet anywhere. The popularity of this (and other) space shows how much the students value the library as a place. Across the board the students we spoke with also valued serendipity, and liked looking as books shelved together. We also heard positive things about the periodicals move: one student even said, “now I will use them!”

We found that students often are confused by library speak. As we know, many of the terms we say, or write on the website, make sense to us, but not to all of our users. One group continued to come back to interlibrary loan, first asking what it was, then asking several follow up questions. Once they knew what it was, they were really excited about it, but it showed us how even a term that sounds like what it means might still be confusing to users.

Once we were able to address the design of the website, we heard pretty clearly that there are too many links on the homepage. People look at the main tabs, but are overwhelmed by the amount of text on the page. One student said “design is content” and in this sense, we heard that the design obscured the content. We also heard that the catalog is one click away rather than no clicks, which would be preferable. Students also said they’d like to see library and technology news displayed more prominently, even news about the new Firefox or Zotero. Across the board they love the covers in the catalog and the new text message call number feature.

We also learned that the students would like a more simplified way of getting started. They suggested a Getting Started button on the website for those who have never written a college level research paper before. Hopefully, we’ll be able to easily do this with the Toolkit. We also received a request that librarians compile top research blogs and think tanks in a wiki, letting the students contribute as well. This student found many blogs by professors in their field and use them in their academic work. He thought a list of these blogs would have been very helpful when he was getting started in the field.

The students also spoke to a need to make things very easy and well publicized. One student described her classmates as “very intense, they need simple information and lots of marketing.” Over and over we hear a need for simple, bulleted news. Students like what we have to offer, but want an easy way to find out about it.

And perhaps the best quote of them all: “The library going 24/5 was the most beautiful thing that ever happened.”

These focus groups have given us a lot of work to do, but they’ve also given us work that we know will help our students. We hope to do more of these types of meetings, but first we need to create a Getting Started page… list some relevant research blogs… find a way to market library news……

On Sunday, July 13th, Roz led the 30 new freshmen student athletes through a twenty minute introduction to the Z. Smith Reynolds Library. These students came to the library in three groups, one group every twenty minutes, over the course of an hour. We placed them in the ITC desktop computer lab and had the students spend five minutes searching for answer to three questions about a particular Olympic sport. After five minutes, Roz asked them what they found and how they found it. It didn’t take long for them to realize their trusted Google search didn’t always deliver the best results! This gave us the opportunity to show them how to contact a librarian for research assistance. After answering a few more questions about the library, we signed off on their “Deacon Discovery” worksheets (think “scavenger hunt”) and sent them on to their next destination. Hopefully this fast, fun introduction to the Z. Smith Reynolds Library will encourage these students to come back when papers are due! (We’ve already seen a few with a 10 page Anthropology paper due in summer school.) These students were great, and Roz and I had a wonderful time introducing them to ZSR!

For the first time in ITC history, we have instituted a fine structure to encourage our student patrons to return cameras, camcorders and projectors on time. We have offered loans on digital equipment and accessories for many years, but are limited by budget on the number of items we can buy. We depend on our users to return borrowed equipment on time so that it is available for others to check out. Unfortunately, some students don’t appreciate the dilemma and often keep the equipment far over the due date.

After attempting other methods to persuade users to be timely, we have decided that it is time to use a fine system to promote on-time returns. This policy will apply to undergraduate and graduate students. Faculty and staff will not be charged fines because, traditionally, they are conscientious about meeting due dates for equipment.

The 3 day loan period with no renewal will stay in effect. When a user checks out a piece of equipment or accessory item, a customer checkout receipt will be generated that shows the due date. A hard copy notice explaining the new policy will be included with each item. A day before it is due, a courtesy reminder will be emailed to the user. Once it is overdue, the fine will accrue on a daily basis for a two week period. Overdue notices showing the accrued charge will be sent daily. After two weeks, it will be declared lost and a lost fee will incur. If the student returns the item at that time, the lost charge will be forgiven, but the fine is still owed.

The fine/lost fee schedule is:

Camera: Fine of $5.00/day overdue; $150 lost/replacement fee

Camcorder: Fine of $5.00/day overdue; $500 lost/replacement fee

Projector: Fine of $10.00/day overdue; $800 lost/replacement fee

Accessories: Fine of $1.00/day overdue; $50 lost/replacement fee
(cords and cables, power supplies, projector screens, tripods, headphones)

Proceeds from collected fines will be used to increase the equipment loaner pool.