Running head: BEYOND THE LIBRARY 1

Reaching Students Beyond the Library Building

Sara K. Motsinger

Emporia State University

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Modern University students have grown up right alongside the technologies available to

them. They do not remember a time without computers, wireless, handheld devices, or the ease

of Google. When they step foot onto campus to begin their college careers, how many of them

actually visit the library building? While completing their degrees, how many take advantage of

online courses as well as traditional face-to-face classwork? Most importantly, how are

University libraries reaching the students who do not ever enter the library building? As a library

paraprofessional in an academic library setting, my goal was to explore the many different ways

academic librarians are meeting students where they are, and to examine the different methods

they are using to reach their student populations who may be both on and off campus.

Reaching Students on Campus

Librarians leaving the library is not a new idea. The changing face of reference services

has been a topic in academic library circles for many years. As Leonard so succinctly put it back

in 1994, if librarians and their staffs remain in libraries, they will soon be placed on the list of

endangered species (p. 29). Students and faculty are no longer used to going straight to the

library (or even the library website) to begin their research, opting to use mobile, self-service

research tools (Attis & Koproske, 2013, p. 19). If patrons no longer see the library as the first

step in their research, librarians have to find ways to go to their users, and the number of ways

that academic librarians are doing that is growing.

Embedded librarians place themselves within the departments they seek to assist,

becoming progressive librarians (who)bring their skills directly to users, embedding in

classrooms, online course portals, and even departmental research teams (Attis & Koproske,

2013, p. 23). These entrenched professionals become part of their departments, offering research

help and consultations on the fly, helping bring information literacy into the course content of
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their specialized areas of expertise. The goals of embedded librarianship are increased

interaction, collaboration, and integration with the target community (OToole, Barham, &

Monahan, 2016, p. 531). By increasing daily interaction and developing strong personal

relationships with the students and faculty within a department, the embedded librarian is seen as

a valuable team member who is trusted and respected for their expertise (OToole et al., 2016).

Bell and Shank (2004) developed a concept they called blended librarianship, which

they define as an academic librarian who combines the traditional skill set of librarianship with

the information technologists hardware/software skills, and the instructional or educational

designers ability to apply technology appropriately in the teachinglearning process (p. 374).

Blended librarians are perfectly suited to embedded librarianship as they are not library centric

(i.e., focused on the building and its physical collections) but ratherlibrarian centric (i.e.,

focused on peoples skill, knowledge they have to offer, and relationships they build) (Bell &

Shank, 2011, p. 106). Bell and Shank see that the focus should naturally shift from library-as-

collection to library-as-people, thereby fulfill(ing) the evolving educational mission of the

academic library (2011, p. 109).

Personal librarians take library services a step farther by making them clearly individual,

assigning one specific librarian to each incoming student. That librarian serves as the students

point of contact for all reference questions, and is charged with contacting the student regularly

to see if they can assist with any questions the student might have. This addresses students lack

of experience in libraries and being afraid to ask for help, but it also creates a direct personal

relationship that may help in dealing with the patrons not in the library (Nann, 2010, p. 22). At

Texas Tech University, the library marketed their personal librarians by creating video

segments to introduce the subject librarians to the students and to make them more approachable
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and less intimidating by highlighting the librarians own personal interests (Henry, Vardeman, &

Syma, 2012, p. 399).

It goes by many names, but roving reference (also known as librarians on location,

roaming reference, satellite librarians, etc.) also serves as a method for academic librarians to not

only offer reference services to students in their gathering places, but to also market the library

through face-to-face familiarity with library staff. Roving reference began as simply roving the

library building to check in with students and see if they need assistance; this is what Rudin

(2008) has referred to as the troubadour approach to reference (p. 61). Aided by a wireless

tablet PC on which to perform simple reference tasks, these librarians stepped out from their

desks to reach out personally to students. The approach evolved, and required leaving the

physical building to venture out on campus and perform reference on the fly. Librarians, as

Rudin (2008) observed, chose to take the next logical leap from outreach to outposts, leaving

the mother ship to set up satellite service points (p. 60).

These service points centered around the busiest parts of campus, which meant that

librarians answered questions of all sorts, from directional inquiries to basic informational

requests. The focus was not on the purpose of the encounter, but rather on the need to make it

personal: as Rudin (2008) states, The entire foundation of outpost librarianship rests on the

supposition that in a digitally dominated environment, there is still inherent value in the personal

encounter (p. 70). Barnhart and Pierce (2011) focused not on the face-to-face nature of mobile

reference, but on how it gives libraries the ability to become ubiquitous, which means that they

must explore how new technologiescan help make our interpersonal services, our guidance

and instruction tools, and our information resources available where they are needed, anytime
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and anywhere (p. 281). This is an essential part in reaching another important demographic of

students: distance learners.

Reaching Students off Campus

While distance learning students are able to reach their academic librarians by email or

phone for library questions of all sorts, how else are academic librarians reaching out to students

who cannot visit them on campus? A 2015 study published in The Journal of Academic

Librarianship (Yang & Dalal), which looked at the web-based reference services in use at 362

institutions, found that 74% of the institutions used at least one virtual reference technology, with

almost half (47.5%) providing virtual chat services. As Yang and Dalal (2015) state, virtual

reference is a natural match fordistance learning(and) is also perfectly suited for the

learning style of the young undergraduate students, a generation that grew up with the culture of

the Internet and social media (p. 82). Virtual reference in this study is defined as email, phone,

text messaging, instant messenger, video chat conferencing, interactive knowledge base, and

others (Yang & Dalal, 2015, p. 70). Chat services are available via instant messaging, text

messages to the institution, apps for mobile devices, and more.

Aside from the library website, which serves as the virtual hub for essential reference

information, where can distance-learning students be found to gather? Susan Karplus (2006)

notes that the one electronic campus location students are most likely to visit daily is

Blackboard, and by posting modules about information literacy as well as blogs, podcasts, and

other multimedia tools on the site, the library could bring about a three-way integration of

Blackboard, information literacy instruction, and the use of the newer podcasts format (p. 7).

Using Blackboard as a hub for library-based instruction and reference info would allow library

staff to reach both on and off-campus users in one place that they all (virtually) gather. Strategies
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employed to assist virtual students in accessing library resources end up benefitting all students,

especially in a time when research and study sessions become more virtual in nature (Attis &

Koproske, 2013, p. 23) for all students that the academic library serves.

Conclusion

Academic librarians are fully engaged in the process of figuring out how to reach their

student populations, both in-person and virtually. In the ever-evolving field of librarianship,

academic librarians are testing out new ways of reaching all students in all ways. From virtual

chat to Skype, roving reference services to the embedded librarians in academic departments,

Universities nationwide are adapting their services to be responsive to a changing student

population that is very technologically savvy and entering a workforce where being information

literate is more important than ever before. As Barnhart and Pierce (2011) state, this requires

giving our patrons control over when and how the reference interaction will occur (p. 283).

Academic librarians need to embrace the growing skill sets of their positions and be prepared to

be both mobile and recognizable, in specific academic departments as well as on campus at

large. Being visible (online and off), they can demonstrate their innate and intrinsic value to

student, faculty, and staff of the Universities they serve. Success can be measured, as Del Bosque

and Chapman (2007) noted, in terms of raising the librarys profile across campus (p. 260).

And in raising that profile and making staff more well known on the campuses they serve,

academic librarians can work towards improving information literacy among their student

populations and help their students succeed both at University and in their lives and careers

beyond.
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References

Attis, D., & Koproske, C. (2013). Thirty trends shaping the future of academic libraries. Learned

Publishing, 26(1), 18-23.

Barnhart, F. D., & Pierce, J. E. (2011). Becoming mobile: Reference in the ubiquitous library.

Journal of Library Administration, 51(3), 279-290.

Bell, S. J., & Shank, J. (2004). The blended librarian: A blueprint for redefining the teaching and

learning role of academic librarians. College & Research Libraries News, 65(7), 372-375.

Del Bosque, D., & Chapman, K. (2007). Your place or mine? Face-to-face reference services

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Henry, C. L., Vardeman, K. K., & Syma, C. K. (2012). Reaching out: connecting students to

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Karplus, S. S. (2017). Integrating academic library resources and learning management systems:

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Shank, J. D., & Bell, S. (2011). Blended librarianship. Reference & User Services Quarterly,

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