Targeting Graduate Students with a Scholarly Communications Program
Start Date
3-16-2020 1:00 PM
End Date
3-16-2020 1:30 PM
Keywords
Scholarly Communications; outreach; gradute students; academic libraries
Description of Proposal
Louisiana State University Libraries is transforming its scholarly communication effort by focusing on graduate students. After small group and library-wide discussions, we hired a consulting firm which specializes in helping organizations meet the research needs of diverse populations. They led us through a self-examination so as to help us determine our best path forward.
Our consultants met with library staff, held focus groups from the university, and then created flowcharts and spreadsheets describing current practice. From these exercises, our consultants helped us conclude that, for LSU Libraries, concentrating on graduate students is our best first step forward.
Currently our Research and Instruction Services (RIS) librarians provide much undergraduate support, and these services are very successful. Although graduate level sessions are offered, attendance rates are far lower at graduate student sessions.
Conversely, in our graduate student focus groups, we heard students craving research support. These students aren’t getting this support from their major professors and they seemingly aren’t aware of what the Libraries has to offer. Where is the disconnect? What can we do differently? How best can we serve this population?
We will discuss the consulting process, and we will outline the decisions we are making to reach our graduate students. We’ll address questions: What do we offer to capture the attention of graduate students? How do we assess their most critical needs? How do we market this campaign to grab their attention? And, critically, how do we measure our success?
Targeting Graduate Students with a Scholarly Communications Program
Louisiana State University Libraries is transforming its scholarly communication effort by focusing on graduate students. After small group and library-wide discussions, we hired a consulting firm which specializes in helping organizations meet the research needs of diverse populations. They led us through a self-examination so as to help us determine our best path forward.
Our consultants met with library staff, held focus groups from the university, and then created flowcharts and spreadsheets describing current practice. From these exercises, our consultants helped us conclude that, for LSU Libraries, concentrating on graduate students is our best first step forward.
Currently our Research and Instruction Services (RIS) librarians provide much undergraduate support, and these services are very successful. Although graduate level sessions are offered, attendance rates are far lower at graduate student sessions.
Conversely, in our graduate student focus groups, we heard students craving research support. These students aren’t getting this support from their major professors and they seemingly aren’t aware of what the Libraries has to offer. Where is the disconnect? What can we do differently? How best can we serve this population?
We will discuss the consulting process, and we will outline the decisions we are making to reach our graduate students. We’ll address questions: What do we offer to capture the attention of graduate students? How do we assess their most critical needs? How do we market this campaign to grab their attention? And, critically, how do we measure our success?
What takeaways will attendees learn from your session?
Targeted scholarly communications can lead to broad campus-wide success
A self-discovery process within a library leads to a more effective approach to scholarly communication.