LIBRARY OUTREACH AT RIT: BRINGING THE LIBRARY AND

WRITING CENTER TO STUDENTS

Daniel TroutSheryl Kron Rhodes

2011 SUNYLA ConferenceJune 16, 2011

ABOUT THE ROCHESTER INSTITUTE

OF TECHNOLOGY (RIT)

Founded in 1829 Private university located in Rochester, NY Nine colleges & institutes 17,000+ students (Fall 2010) RIT emphasizes career education

& experiential learning

ABOUT THE WALLACE LIBRARY AT RIT

Hub for research & information exchange Four floors of books, periodicals, help desks, computers & other

electronic media, individual study carrels & small group rooms Collections within Wallace Library include the Cary Collection, a

renowned library on printing history, the RIT Archive Collections, & the VIA Lab, with access to workstations, printing, image scanning, & an array of software as well as networked resources

Online access to catalog, electronic class reserves, 180+ electronic research databases, digital art collections, & librarian-selected Internet resources

Wireless access to electronic databases & full-text electronic journals

Wallace Library received 2006 Excellence in Academic Libraries Award from the Association of College & Research Libraries

“The first place to go when you need to know”

ABOUT RIT’S ACADEMIC SUPPORT CENTER’S WRITING

CENTER

Mission: To make students confident, creative, & independent writers

Free service to all RIT students No appointments necessary Instructional center: Goal is to support

students’ efforts to become better writers

ABOUT RIT’S SOL STUDY CENTER

Learning space open to all RIT students Focused on academic needs of first-year

students Located in residence hall area to bring

academic services, including the library, to students’ doorstep

Services include math, physics, & writing tutors, & library assistants

PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN RIT & UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO’S (UB)

DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARY & INFORMATION STUDIES (LIS)

Practicum requesting LIS students listed on the LIS department’s Practicum Website

Practicum request for two students per quarter, covering four nights per week (Monday–Thursday), two hours per evening   

Practicum students received training on services offered at library from subject librarians   

Practicum students worked at the reference desk with subject librarians as part of the practicum

HOW THE PRACTICUM WORKED

Practicum students were given name tags to identify themselves to students as representatives of the Wallace Library

A laptop was provided by the library for practicum students to use in assisting students with reference & research queries

Hard copies of reference material handouts (e.g., how to cite in APA & MLA style; maps of the library layout; how to structure research) were provided to give to students

SERVICES PROVIDED BY LIS PRACTICUM STUDENTS

Research assistance using library’s online resources (e.g., databases, catalog): Using information literacy theories & methodologies, practicum students demonstrated best practices in finding & evaluating information needed by students using the Sol Center

Assistance in finding LibGuides: RIT subject librarians began developing LibGuides to aid students in finding the best sources on a wide variety of subjects; there is both a Sol Study Center LibGuide & an APA/MLA usage LibGuide

Assignment calculator: A program to help students budget out time to write a paper; reprogrammed calculator to incorporate LibGuides & up-to-date information as part of the practicum learning experience

WORKING WITH THE SOL CENTER’S TUTORS

The math, physics, & writing tutors in the Sol Center are RIT students & thus potential links to RIT’s student body to increase outreach & knowledge of the library services in the Sol Center

Often tutors’ friends would stop by the Center, providing opportunities for practicum students to introduce ourselves & the library-related services provided

WORKING WITH NATIONAL TECHNICAL INSTITUTE FOR THE

DEAF (NTID) STUDENTS

NTID was the world’s first & largest technological college for deaf & hearing-impaired students; one of RIT’s eight colleges

Different learning and teaching styles Reference interviews are conducted through an

interpreter, often one of the math, physics, or writing tutors in the Sol Center

Two preferred methods of saving information: E-mail Screenshots with cell phones

PROMOTION OF LIBRARY SERVICES IN THE SOL STUDY

CENTER

Subject librarians promoted the new services to faculty & students

Library staff distributed print flyers to faculty in the College of Liberal Arts each quarter

Advertisement within the library were done via flyers & a plasma screen ad in the library’s entrance

Library staff distributed flyers to first-year students’ mailboxes via student senators

METHODS OF FEEDBACK FOR LIBRARY SERVICES PROVIDED

A very short paper survey requesting feedback is given to each student seeking assistance

Anecdotal evidence is gathered through conversing with students & explaining what we do

CHALLENGES

Majority of the students at RIT are not liberal arts students and do not write research papers

No marketing budget for this program; advertising must be cost neutral  

No Facebook or Twitter accounts for the library         as methods to interact with students

RIT runs on the quarter system, so classwork is compressed into a 50% shorter period of time as compared with semesters, resulting in a rush of work at the end of each quarter; if students are not versed in planning ahead, it can be difficult to find the time required to research & write a good paper

SUCCESSES

Fall Quarter: One student Winter Quarter: Three students Spring Quarter: Three students Staffing was expanded in the Winter and

Spring quarters from two nights a week to four nights a week

FUTURE PLANS

Promote the services provided by the library in the Sol Center through the First Year Experience staff, who teach all first-year RIT students

Need to remember that this program will likely follow a similar path to that of the Math & Physics Tutoring program: initially coverage was limited to only one or two nights per week & had poor attendance, but the program now employs three tutors each evening (Monday–Thursday) for three hours each night—the program started out small & grew

FUTURE PLANS (CONTINUED) Changes in RIT’s core curriculum will require more

writing in the future, meaning an increased need to learn how to effectively search, find, & evaluate information to produce quality research papers

Continued staffing of the Sol Study Center New study center within the Global Village during

the Fall Quarter: Also sponsored by AIM (Academic Intervention

& Mentoring) Larger population of upperclass students Math/science tutors Peer writing tutors Library staffing