Supporting Mental Health on Campus

The Digital Toolbox — How Libraries are Playing an Important Role in Supporting Mental Health on Campus

Column Editor: Steve Rosato (Director and Business Development Executive, OverDrive Professional, Cleveland, OH 44125) <srosato@overdrive.com>

One of the few positive developments related to COVID-19 has been an increase in mental health awareness. This is especially true among young people and college students, with many expressing increased stress and anxiety due to the pandemic. As seen in the chart below, colleges have doubled their spend since 2019 (+113%) on mental health-related ebooks and audiobooks. Student usage of these titles has also significantly increased.

© Aggregated data from OverDrive-supplied Academic libraries, 2019-2021.

According to Infobase Editor-In-Chief Jim Chambers, “All students worry about tests and papers, about their social life and other everyday issues. The Mayo Clinic reports that up to 44% also report experiencing symptoms of clinical anxiety and depression. Assuming many others share these symptoms without reporting them, it’s conceivable that more than half of college students struggle with mental health during their student years. The Clinic also cited suicide as the third leading cause of death among college students.” Chambers continues, “While a variety of factors contributes to these troubling statistics, prevention and treatment of mental illness can help students reach a positive outcome. Many students who seek treatment for anxiety, depression and other mental disorders experience significant improvement and recovery, but the hardest step is often asking for help. Administrators, librarians and campus services play an essential role in reducing the stigma associated with mental health issues by prioritizing and providing information and access to health care resources.”

With many colleges and universities now working to expand their support for student mental health, let’s explore how the libraries at Rogers State University (OK) and Northeast Lakeview College (Alamo Colleges District—TX) are playing an important role in this process.

Rogers State University

Collection Development and Outreach Librarian Michelle Owens reports that Rogers State University (RSU) in Oklahoma, like many institutions, has experienced an increase in requests for titles about happiness and self-care throughout the pandemic.

“In response, we purchased additional titles, curated OverDrive (digital book) collections and hosted multiple popular virtual events that featured resources and title lists on these topics,” she said. Owens said RSU Libraries works closely with the psychology and community counseling programs and student organizations such as the RSU Student Social Justice League, and regularly receives title requests from these groups. In support of the campus’ observation of events like Mental Wealth Day, National Coming Out Day and National “… colleges have Eating Disorder Awareness Week, doubled their RSU Libraries also selects related titles and curates OverDrive digital collections for promotion over social spend since 2019 (+113%) media. on mental “We often collaborate with RSU health-related Student Affairs, specifically our campus counselors, to support and promote their initiatives by using eBooks and audiobooks.” our resources,” she added. “This might mean we purchase titles the counselors recommend or create resource lists to be printed or for social media promotion. We create digital collection displays, design online guides and co-host events.” Owens noted that in the past few years, RSU Libraries has also increased its inter-departmental outreach to host more fun and co-curricular academic events in person and virtually to support students. This includes the annual RSU Resume and Cover Letter Workshop with Student Support Services and Career Services as well as housing the campus Community Cupboard with Residential Life.

Northeast Lakeview College

Northeast Lakeview College in Texas Director of Library Services Victoria A. Hart, MSLIS, said the library purchases books — both physical and digital — in the areas of mental health, self-care and personal wellbeing for the purpose of recreational reading, not just curriculum support. She also shared a unique project the library has undertaken. “To support mental health, we recently collaborated with a corporate sponsor to start a ‘Zen Garden’ on campus for meditation and reflection,” she said. “Their financial support includes purchasing materials supporting meditation and selfcare. When completed, we will market the materials and garden in a way that encourages they be used together.”

Hart explained that the Northeast Lakeview campus has a Student Advocacy Center that includes Disability Support Services, Mental Health Counseling Services and a Student Emergency Fund. Other resources on campus include the Nighthawk’s Nest Food Pantry and the Giving Garden, a student-managed vegetable garden. Both address the growing issue of food insecurity within the community. In its inaugural harvest, the Giving Garden produced more than 330 pounds of vegetables. And with collaboration one of the six core values of Northeast Lakeview, the library plays an active role in many of these exciting initiatives, and more. “As a community college library, we work closely with other departments to support mental and physical health on campus. The Giving Garden was sponsored by a United States Department of Agriculture grant, written by a library staff member,” Hart said. “We worked with the Wellness Department to create a program utilizing exercise bike desks around campus, including those housed in the library. The Student Advocacy Center sponsored free mental health first aid classes, which several library staff attended.”

The pandemic has made many more people aware of the importance of mental health. As we’ve seen here, academic libraries are utilizing a wide variety of programming and resources to support students who might be struggling. And whether its digital books or collaboration with other departments, these efforts are crucial and highlight the continued importance of libraries on campus.

Biz of Digital continued from page 47

In marking the 20th anniversary of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), the BOAI20 steering committee released a new set of recommendations based on the current state of OA and the collective understanding of OA’s systemic issues.7 One of the committee’s major recommendations is for the scholarly publishing industry to transition away from APCs. BOAI described APCs to be “as opaque and inscrutable as subscription prices,” disproportionately excluding many independent scholars, authors in the global south, and authors in the north from lessprivileged institutions.8 BOAI further recommended the promotion of and investment in repository-based “green” OA as well as no-APC “diamond” OA journals.9 The articles published in APC-based journals are just as open as ones made OA without an APC, but many publishers right now appear to be pricing certain authors out of the OA publication market, thus excluding their voices from the broader scholarly conversation. The workflow I currently employ to expand my library’s faculty research collection reaches authors after they have paid, or have had a funder/institution cover, the APC. My 2022 goal is to pair the good work we have started with our new repository process with more and better education about green OA, equally emphasizing that ThinkTech can be a venue for their presentation posters or slide decks, as well as the works that may not fit in traditional publishing models. One concrete goal of mine in 2022 is to secure a timeslot during New Faculty Orientation to talk to younger faculty as soon as possible. I suspect our younger faculty will especially be as interested as I am in increasing research equity, especially if it can save them and their funders money at the same time. Cara Bradley wrote in 2021 about the concept of grounding OA librarianship in the ethics of care, using Joan Tronto’s four elements of care — attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness — as a framework to make scholarly communication more inclusive.10 The care work of institutional repository management simply must extend beyond the goal of increasing the size of a digital collection. The workflow described above is a good start in establishing an IR and starting conversations with faculty members about how they can expand the reach of their work, but it cannot end there. We must use the privileges we have as librarians managing a repository service to empower open access both to readers and scholars.

Endnotes

1. Schitt’s Creek. (2016, March 22). Schitt’s

Creek – “Fold in the Cheese!” [Video]. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=NywzrUJnmTo. 2. https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/handle/2346/469. 3. Salo, D. (2008). Innkeeper at the Roach Motel. Library Trends, 57(2), 98. https://doi. org/10.1353/lib.0.0031. 4. Elsevier. (2018, July 26). Elsevier/Impactstory

Agreement will make open access articles easier to find on scopus. Elsevier Connect.

Retrieved from https://www.elsevier.com/ connect/elsevier-impactstory-agreementwill-make-open-access-articles-easier-tofind-on-scopus. 5. Salo, 2008, p. 119. 6. Wu, A., Davis-Van Atta, T., Thompson, S., Scott, B., & Washington, A. (2019). From Meow to ROAR: Expanding Open Access Repository Services at the University of Houston Libraries. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 7(General

Issue). https://doi.org/10.7710/21623309.2309. 7. BOAI20. Budapest Open Access Initiative. (2022, March 15). Retrieved from https:// www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/ boai20/. 8. BOAI20, 2022, 3.1 & 3.2. 9. BOAI20, 2022, 3.6. 10. Bradley, C. (2021). Academic Librarians, Open Access, and the Ethics of Care. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 9(General Issue). https://doi.org/10.31274/ jlsc.12914.