Your Personal Librarian: Connecting First-Year Students to the Library at Reed College
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7710/1093-7374.1867Keywords:
Erin conor, performing arts, freshman, curriculum, buy in, parents, staff, liaison, Oregon, Oregon libraries, academic library, libraries, librarians, northwest, information science, information literacy, social media, writing, library trends, books, donors, library funding, Oregon library association, quarterly, Oregon library association quarterly, American library association, ala, ola, reading, library success, success, evolving roles, UX, user experience, user services, OSU, Lane county community college, Linn Benton county community college, Reed, Reed college, Oregon state, University, library service design, Joe, Marquez, web services, bees, picture book topics, cataloging by, public, fiction staff picks, new discipline, changes in libraries, career, careers, library careers, library career, new department, student workers, fall, 2016, access services, professional journal, scholarly, academic, circulation, Portland, Multnomah County Library, personal librarian, innovative, inventive, Washington county cooperative library services, user, users, solutionAbstract
Think back to your first year of college. How did you feel? Eager? Excited? Maybe also fearful, anxious about fitting in, making friends, or being successful? First-year students have a lot on their minds. It can be challenging to help them forge a meaningful connection with the library. Amidst the internal cacophony generated by the transition to college and the slew of departments and services competing for their attention when they arrive on campus, they may not realize that the library is here to help, too.
The Reed College Library has had a Personal Librarian program for our first-year students since the 2011 academic year.1 We started our program after realizing that we were having a difficult time connecting with first-year students, for many of the reasons listed above. We were also inspired to start our program after realizing that our liaison model, in which each academic department at Reed is assigned a specific librarian as their subject liaison, might not be reaching students who had yet to declare a major. Finally, like many academic libraries, we were often facing slow traffic at our reference desk and were curious to explore alternative service models.
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