At a recent conference, I attended a session put on by some of the librarians from my campus. The trio spoke about various endeavors that they engaged in to bring library services to far-flung online students.
Standards for Distance Learning Library Services
One resource that they pointed to involved the Association of College & Research Libraries? (ACRL?s) ?Standards for Distance Learning Library Services?. This document uses an ?access entitlement? principle to convey the sense that all individuals on campus should have access rights to its services.
A ?Suite of Services?
Some of the resources described in the presentation involved the need to ensure direct human contact, through email, phone, text messaging, and other venues. The online resources and database repositories are fully accessible to online learners. Contrary to some expectations, it turns out that distance learners have access to the print collection, too, through the interlibrary loan feature. Our university will mail out materials free but request students send back the books on their own dime. (Some universities cover postage both ways by sending a pre-paid envelope with the materials. Still others just purchase books outright for learners because the monetary difference between mailing resources and just purchasing resources is negligible.) There are online reference software programs (software as a service).
Embedded Librarians
Our librarians on campus are also faculty members. This means that they can embed with a class, with faculty permission. They will interact with students on their research projects. They will monitor discussion boards. They will lead particular lessons. They may host or participate in blogs. They may hold online office hours. They hold Twitter discussions with specific hashtags identifying the various comments.
Further, they create LibGuides for particular courses, with a range of resources for students in particular learning sections to use.
Knowing Learners
The librarians explained the importance of knowing their learners through the widely available demographics as well as survey outreaches. Their own research showed that there are high levels of unawareness of library resources. Or the faculty who are aware of the resources they have for their work may not apply that concept of services for their students. What they were hoping for was both awareness of the services and the encouragement for students to use them.
Their survey included questions on the usage of local public libraries and military libraries. It found low general usage. Where many of their respondents went was to the Internet and WWW.
The Need to Promote
The idea is that library resources have to be promoted to its various user groups in order to encourage usage of the human, print, and electronic resources. To catch the attention of distance learners, the librarians have created an online course about the various resources for all faculty (delivered through the learning / course management system). There are FAQs for distance students on the main page of the site, along with various ways to reach out to librarians (including a toll-free number). The library has a marketing office to help in the outreach. The site has downloadable DL handouts for site visitors.
The library also is reaching out to various units on campus to create a presence on their sites; these include the Division of Continuing Education and the Graduate Schools office. They collaborate with academic advisors and DCE coordinators.
Planning for Quality Service
The distance education team of faculty librarians is planning further to support online learners. They are developing a library toolkit for online learners. They are working on lists of information that may be sent out based on virtual questions. They are working to improve their instructional pages. They shared with the audience that they?re going to reassess in the summer of 2013.
The campus is moving towards encouraging research even at the undergraduate level, and the librarians are working hard to support undergraduate research as an integral part of their work. They suggested that they may look to hosting virtual poster sessions. One observed: distance students are often a ?last thought? for many on campus, and these librarians will be working hard to make sure that this isn?t the case.
Source: http://id.ome.ksu.edu/blog/2012/aug/12/thinking-library-resources/
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