“A first-year student is 9 times more likely to stay in school if they use the library even once."
This is the conclusion of a research study done in 2016 by Murray, Ireland, and Hackathorn titled "The Value of Academic Libraries: Library Services as a Predictor of Student Retention." We agree! There are multiple research articles correlating that the more frequently academic librarians work with students, the better the students’ grades and the higher their graduation rate. Relationships established early between freshmen or transfers and librarians increased the likelihood of student resilience and degree completion. Library Instruction classes are usually a student's first introduction to the library and helps set their expectations for the resources and services we offer. Data currently being gathered and assessed by the Fearless Learning QEP team will help us make more specific correlations between our Information Literacy programs and student success. Book a Librarian appointments reach one student at a time and truly function as "research counseling" since this service goes beyond finding and evaluating sources and dives into student interpretation of assignments, approaches to problem-solving, discovery of related ideas, and discussion of individual goals.
Student and Faculty Feedback
Students and Faculty strongly agree that the Library's three information literacy program services promote student confidence and success in research assignment completion:
More than 100 SAC faculty scheduled 327 information literacy classes during the 2018-19 academic year. The year-end survey revealed that some 98 percent said, “The classes helped my students to successfully complete research assignments for the course.”
More than 17,000 students signed in at the Reference Desk during the Fall 2019 semester. Of those surveyed, 96.8% evaluated the librarians' research assistance as "excellent or good."
More than 470 students made appointments through Book a Librarian between Fall 2017-Fall 2019. All students rate these appointments. 98% gave us a rating of "excellent."
Fearless Learning Lesson Plan and Worksheet - Promoting a Growth Mindset, Practicing Persistence
In spite of our best efforts to keep the QEP/REA lesson plan and worksheet completely separate from other library instruction classes, the pedagogical approach from the lesson plan is spilling over into all classes with very positive results. The Fearless Learning Lesson Plan and Worksheet invites students to apply and enlarge the grittiness they exhibit in other parts of their lives to their inquiries and explorations in their new role as researching readers and writers. This collaborative and rhetoricized low-stakes learning empowers students by providing familiar activities and dispositions like evaluating success and failure, embracing failed attempts as a necessary part of the learning process, and seeing the communal support and communal value of learning. The librarians’ new approach to teaching frames learning as a safe, but important conversation--a conversation that the students steer.
Recommendations on Scalability of Services
Book a Librarian appointments - We need more librarians in order to fully scale up on offering available dates/times for Book a Librarian appointments. We lost one part-time librarian this Fall which triggered a need for full-time librarians to cover evening hours at the Reference Desk. This coverage took away from our ability to offer a more comprehensive daytime and late afternoon in-person student assistance which explains the drop in appointment numbers from Fall 2018 to Fall 2019. This high impact practice - coaching and counseling one student at a time - requires focused and immediate support if we want to see growth.
Library Instruction classes - Librarians need more weekly time dedicated to deeper collaborations with faculty. While the Fearless Learning QEP and Research Engagement Academy is assisting in the creation of information literacy infused assignments, many faculty have not been through the QEP and could greatly benefit from one-on-one or small group workshops focused on assignment revision.
Reference Desk - Staff and student assistants could be better utilized to help students with in-person issues that are not specifically research related which would free up the librarian to provide more in-depth research assistance via in-person drop-ins or online via chat and Zoom.