Outreach, E-Learning, Resource Guides
I was hoping that the first presentation, on providing library services at Multicultural student services centers would help me figure out the next steps to take with a virtual outreach project I am trying to coordinate via the library website, involving student services providers at PCC. It did not, but did at least give me hope and faith that student services providers can take an interest in how the library can work with them to the benefit of our students. The UNM program is a physical outreach project, but many principles work the same: flexibility, visibility, marketing, etc.
Other speakers provided information about services at their libraries that are not transferable or relevant to PCC at this point. University of Colorado – Boulder has developed an in-house database that provides access to library FAQs, course guides, and subject guides. They are having success with this approach and are able to keep better statistics on what students are searching for and can shift the metadata attached to their guides to get students to existing guides that meet their needs but were missed based on the search strategy used. This has interesting implications, but ultimately isn’t what we want to do, I think. I was put in mind of Jared Spool’s talk at Online NW this year, I got the impression from him that search boxes can cause some issues, but I haven’t looked at the UC-Boulder page to see exactly how they have implemented the search feature. Continue reading…