Dear Friends,
Many of you fondly remember days spent in quiet study in libraries filled with books, exemplifying the scholarly mastery to which students aspire when they arrive on a university campus. The Merrill-Cazier Library still maintains over 1 million physical and almost as many electronic items. Often our Friends support us by making financial contributions toward the development of our collections. However, a library is about more than books.
For example, increasingly, libraries must address new expectations from our campus colleagues, specifically by supporting student success initiatives within our space. Inviting students into our building and delivering the message that everyone belongs is an essential component to the new librarianship. Perhaps nothing exemplifies our work in this arena most recently as well as our After Hours event, a new campus tradition. This September we welcomed the entire first-year class into the library before the first day of school for a shush-free party complete with a dirty soda bar. Thank you so much to our Friends for sponsoring the pizza table for this event.
Our work developing and promoting open educational resources (OER) is another significant contribution we make toward student success. Since 2014, more than 57,000 USU students have saved a combined $2.4 million through using open (free!) course materials, instead of purchasing expensive textbooks. Again, thank you to our Friends organization for sponsoring faculty grants to spur the development of these rich pedagogical resources.
Find out more about these initiatives in this issue of Marginalia and please continue to support the work we are doing to enrich the USU student experience.
Jennifer Duncan, Dean of Libraries
Scan the QR code below or visit: library.usu.edu/news/guides/mentalhealth to explore the Libraries' mental health resources for students.
Student Highlight: Valerie Nelson
Valerie Nelson has been employed at the USU Libraries as a Library Peer Mentor in the Learning & Engagement Services unit since April 2022. As an Undergraduate Teaching Fellow, Valerie does invaluable work that ranges from teaching English 1010 library orientation sessions, to giving tours, to staffing the research help desk and chat, to maintaining online learning materials. She also helps with high-impact outreach efforts, such as the Library After Hours event, therapy dog visits, Finals’ Week de-stress events, and more. In collaboration with two faculty librarians, Valerie recently helped analyze survey data for a research project examining the information literacy skills of over 800 incoming USU students.
One of the interest areas Valerie has developed in her time with the Libraries is digital outreach and engagement. Last year, Valerie led a library-wide group of student employees to produce content for USU Libraries’ TikTok channel, resulting in over 6,000 views. Currently, Valerie serves as a member of the Libraries’ Newsroom Committee and works to create content that highlights collections and research tools of interest to other students. One of her current projects is a post showcasing library e-books and videos about mental health and wellbeing, timed to support students during midterms, destigmatize mental health challenges, and encourage peers to seek support.
Faculty Highlight: Liz Woolcott
Associate Dean Liz Woolcott recently wrapped up a 4-year, $250,000 Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant to develop D-CRAFT, a digital repository assessment toolkit. She worked alongside peers from six prominent universities in the U.S. and Canada under the auspices of the Digital Library Federation Content Reuse Working Group.
Scan here or visit reuse.diglib.org to explore D-CRAFT
The D-CRAFT toolkit aims to provide digital repositories practitioners with training on methods and tools to develop assessment programs to analyze the use of the unique content within their repositories. In addition to providing tutorials for each of the assessment metrics, it also provides ethical guidelines for developing an assessment program, examples of policies that practitioners can reuse, and frameworks for telling stories of impact.
Additionally, the grant team developed a theoretical framework to conceptualize the use and reuse of digital objects and articulated the framework in a peer-reviewed, open-access article which recently won a 2023 Literati Award.
After Hours Welcomes New Students
In late August, the Library threw its second After Hours event, a party designed to familiarize first-year Connections students with the Library. Approximately 1,375 students came to play games, eat food, take part in a raffle, and learn about the Library. Post-event surveys showed that 86% of students who attended feel more comfortable exploring and navigating the Merrill-Cazier Library building and 75% would use a new library service or resource.
The Friends of the Merrill-Cazier Library graciously donated $2,000 to After Hours, providing 200 pizzas for hungry attendees and volunteers. Several board members of the Friends also volunteered their time to staff the event. The Library is incredibly grateful to the Friends for their support.
