Reference Services Outreach to Student Athletes

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Reference Services Outreach to Student Athletes
Dartmouth Biomedical Libraries, 8th annual
October conference Beyond the Building Taking
the Library to our Users Dartmouth College,
Hanover, NH October 28, 2004,

• Janice G. Schuster
• Coordinator of Reference Services and Reference
  Librarian
• Phillips Memorial Library
• Providence College
• Providence, Rhode Island 02918-0001
• 401-865-2631
• jschustr_at_providence.edu

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Introduction

• The goal of the reference services departments
  outreach program is to provide assistance to the
  college community in a non-traditional way.
• One of the components of the outreach program has
  been service to the student athletes.

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Orientation to library resources

• During the fall of 2002, we began the student
  athletes outreach program by providing a thorough
  orientation to library resources for the student
  athletes.
• The orientation took place at the study hall for
  student athletes, at the beginning of the
  semester.

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Study hall

• After the orientation, a reference librarian
  visited the student athlete study hall once each
  week, in the evening, for a total of two hours
  per week. The librarian was equipped with a
  laptop computer, a cable to connect the computer
  to the campus network, and a portable printer.

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Success of student athlete outreach

• This was our most successful outreach program of
  the 2002-2003 academic year.
• The student athletes asked a number of questions
  during the semester.
• Some of the athletes even came to the library to
  ask for further assistance.

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Re-evaluated during 2003-2004 academic year

• However, during the 2003-2004 academic year,
  demand for assistance by the student athletes at
  their study hall decreased to the point that we
  re-evaluated the service we were providing to
  them.
• We met with the staff member from the Office of
  Academic Services who is responsible for the
  student athletes. Based on that meeting, we
  decided to change the format of the outreach
  program for the 2004-2005 academic year.

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2004-2005 academic year Orientation instead of
librarians visiting study hall

• We agreed to try giving an orientation to the
  student athletes during a workshop sponsored by
  the Office of Academic Services.
• The workshop would take place at the beginning of
  the semester.
• The orientation would take the place of providing
  reference services at the study hall each week.

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Preparation for orientation Questionnaire

• We drafted a questionnaire which was given to all
  student athletes during the first study hall of
  the semester. The goal of the questionnaire was
  to determine what the students needed for us to
  cover in the library orientation.From the
  questionnaire Are you taking any courses this
  semester which have a library research
  assignment/component? If yes, please briefly
  describe the assignment.
• We received responses from 45 of the student
  athletes.

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Preparation for orientation Results of
questionnaire

• Of the 45 responses, 31 indicated that the
  student was taking at least one course with a
  library research assignment/component.
• Specific needs included small business
  management how to locate articles in
  anthropology journals research paper on slavery
  and research the demographics of the Depression
  era.

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Orientation

• In early October of 2004, the Reference/Instructio
  n Librarian provided the orientation to approx.
  14 freshmen student athletes, specifically
  freshmen men and women hockey and basketball
  players, as part of a workshop sponsored by the
  Office of Academic Services.
• The librarian covered basic library collections
  and services, including our librarys consortium
  (HELIN) the online catalog and basic databases,
  including EBSCOs Academic Search Premier and
  other subject-specific databases.

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Orientation E-mail follow-up

• After the orientation, I sent the following
  e-mail message to all freshmen student athletes,
  including those who did not attend the
  orientation.
• Dear student athlete
• Congratulations on beginning your academic career
  at Providence College and welcome! As you learned
  in the library portion of the Introduction to the
  Office of Academic Services workshop recently,
  our goal at the Phillips Memorial Library is to
  provide you with the research tools you need to
  become a successful student. The librarians are
  eager to help you identify and use the library's
  print and electronic esources, in person, over
  the phone, by e-mail, and using our new
  interactive virtual reference service. Please
  refer to the enclosed welcome sheet for more
  details about our services and collections.
• All of the library staff wish you the best of
  luck as you pursue your personal and professional
  goals during your time here at Providence
  College.

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Welcome sheet

• I attached the librarys welcome sheet to the
  follow-up e-mail to the student athletes
• http//

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Future plans

• We plan to follow up with the student athletes
  again in mid-semester, to see if they need
  assistance with their research, etc. This might
  be done with another e-mail message.
• We also plan to meet again with the Office of
  Academic Services staff to ensure that the
  outreach we are providing to the student athletes
  is as beneficial to them as possible.