With students spending more research time in front of the screen and less in the stacks, librarians at Drexel University are trying a fresh approach to helping new freshmen navigate their resources: “personal librarians.”
The Personal Librarian Program assigns each of the university’s 2,750 entering freshmen to a librarian. The librarians get in touch with their students before they arrive via snail mail—sending a signed letter and business card—and later meet with students in person for a crash course on the library’s offerings. Each of the approximately 20 librarians trained for the program will also work with their students throughout the semester to encourage them to use the resources and help them figure out how to do so.
“Our role is to help coach our students and help them learn the tools and skills needed to become very savvy,” said Danuta A. Nitecki, Drexel’s dean of libraries. “We believe it’s about human interaction.”
Although most students know their way around a search engine, Ms. Nitecki said, they often don’t know what they are searching for. Having an actual librarian on hand can help them narrow down their questions and figure out more efficient ways to find relevant research material. “The point is not just about interacting with information out in the Internet—it’s about trying to identify what questions you’re trying to answer,” Ms. Nitecki said.
Modeled after programs at medical-school libraries and a few other undergraduate institutions, the Drexel program is trying to redefine the library’s role as more of its research material moves online. Getting students acquainted with the staff also positions librarians as educators, not just archivists.
“We really have future lives in really being core members of the academic community,” Ms. Nitecki said. “We’re not just about building collections and answering questions.”
Drexel’s program has sparked interest among other undergraduate college and university libraries. Academic librarians across the country are attempting to establish their institutional value—as described in a new report from the Association of College and Research Libraries—by expanding services and making libraries more attractive to students.
“This is a way to add a more welcoming and inviting environment,” Ms. Nitecki said. “We do a lot to try to promote that.”
18 Responses to Drexel Freshmen Get Help From ‘Personal Librarians’
22268954 - September 15, 2010 at 8:00 am
This is a very cool idea. I’m trying to imagine it how would work in my high school. Two aspects of this program stand out for me…the personal touch (summer or pre-semester contact) and the fact that many students don’t, won’t or can’t admit they might need some help. So the one-on-one is a great idea. I just wonder if there are any accountibility mechanisms for either students or librarians.Candybeez
dvoros - September 15, 2010 at 8:52 am
Must be nice. We have many, many more freshman and a professional staff of 5 full time librarians and 2 part-time.
yalepl - September 15, 2010 at 9:15 am
The Personal Librarian idea did not begin at Drexel. Yale University has assigned each of its incoming freshmen a Personal Librarian since 2007, and all its medical school students have had PLs since 1996 (see http://www.library.yale.edu/pl and http://www.med.yale.edu/library/services/crs/pl.html). It’s a great program, and it doesn’t require a large investment of staff time or resources.
acmorton - September 15, 2010 at 9:19 am
I agree with @yalepl (no.3), this is not a fresh and new idea. We’ve been doing this at the University of Richmond since the early 2000s.
11186245 - September 15, 2010 at 11:07 am
Good idea and I hope for great success at Drexel’s library. Having visited the U of Richmond operation a few years ago, I am very impressed with what they have achieved in faculty outreach. When I was a library administrator at the U of Colo-Boulder in the mid 70s we had personal librarians residing half time each week in the Economics and History departments, interacting with faculty and students. It worked, but when the grant money ran out after three years, we did not have the $ to continue. John Lubans Jr.
pl_med - September 15, 2010 at 11:10 am
I am so pleased to see that this simple, yet extremely effective program is spreading! We have had a Personal Librarian program in place since 1996 and it is still going strong. Our program, which serves medical, physician associate and graduate students, is not limited to their first year of study. Rather, it serves as an academic support system for these students throughout their years of formal study and beyond. For more info, see:The personal librarian program: an evaluation of a Cushing/Whitney Medical Library outreach initiative.Source: Medical Reference Services Quarterly [0276-3869] yr:2007 vol:26 iss:4 pg:15-25 .
tbdiscovery - September 15, 2010 at 11:12 am
New or not, I’m so relieved to see an institution that previously devalued brick and mortar libraries as almost meaningless in the future (late Pres. Papadakis – an overall good man) actually focusing on the core integration of students with library research. Bravo.
mbelvadi - September 15, 2010 at 11:47 am
Applying this model to the general undergraduate population (as compared with a specialty graduate one for instance) is intriguing. I’m wondering, though if the professional librarians find themselves being contacted for non-research library matters (like renewing books, etc.) or very simple queries (eg “does the library own XYZ Journal/book?”) that would have otherwise have been handled by much less expensive-per-hour circulation staff. Yale can afford that kind of human-resource waste, maybe Drexel can too? Or are the librarians at Yale finding that undergrad students actually understand and respect the boundaries of the different staff roles within the library? Given how many times I’ve seen students refer to a student assistant working at the circ desk as a “librarian”, I wouldn’t expect that to be the case, but I’d be happy to be wrong.
libct - September 15, 2010 at 12:54 pm
At Wesleyan (the CT one) we have just instituted a personal librarian program for our first-year and incoming transfer students, modeled on the Yale program. We’re very excited to see what kind of response we get, and happy to provide one more way for students to learn about the library services and resources available to them. As for mbelvadi’s concern about students not distinguishing between librarians and non-librarians, I think that it is true that often students do not make that distinction. But I don’t know that they need to or should. If a simple inquiry is easily and quickly answered by a librarian, it does not seem like a waste of time for us to answer it. If the inquiry is a more involved circulation or other issue, we can turn it over to our circulation or other staff with the expertise to answer the question. Pat Tully, Wesleyan University Librarian
bob_malooga_looga - September 15, 2010 at 4:39 pm
mbelvadi Seriously? Your concerns are that librarians are being asked, by first year students, questions that are beneath them. And that, libary personnel, regardelss of position, are being all lumped together as “librarian” and that this is demoralizing, or offensive, to the real librarians. If that is the attitude at your library, I would be happy to never enter it. I think this is a great avenue for librarians, and everyone else who works in the library, to become more actively involved on campus. Unless I am mistaken with the reasoning that you want students to come to the library because that should help them academically as well as justify having a physical library.
rockivist - September 15, 2010 at 4:56 pm
I would like to know when archivists ceased being educators.
anarchivist - September 15, 2010 at 8:17 pm
+1 to rockivist’s comment.I’d also like to know why it became unacceptable for information professionals to be “just archivists.” It appears that Mr. Kaya doesn’t know the difference between librarians and archivists. Certainly, some archivists have a library and information science education, and some librarians have an archival or history-based education. Nonetheless, librarians and archivists have distinct responsibilities and areas of professional knowledge.For reference, I suggest reviewing “So You Want To Be An Archivist: An Overview of the Archival Profession,” available from the website of the Society of American Archivists: http://www2.archivists.org/professionMark A. MatienzoManuscripts and ArchivesYale University Library
mbelvadi - September 15, 2010 at 10:22 pm
Bob-malooga-looga – did I say anything about demoralizing or offensive? No, what I said was expensive. My point was entirely an economic one. It’s not a good use of hospital resources for a cardiologist to be routinely taking patients’ temperatures, and it’s not a good use of university resources for research librarians to be helping undergrads renew their books. It has nothing to do with ego. I have the greatest respect for ALL of our library staff, for their professionalism and high standards of customer service. I was making a purely economics 101 argument about efficiency of division of labor. And as I said, I hope that I’m wrong, and that the program described won’t result in any significant amount of such inefficiency, because it does sound like a very nice program for students.
manaaki - September 16, 2010 at 12:54 am
Tena koutou katoa (greetings to you all)I think this is a great idea doen’t matter who invented the program or when! I am from a Public Library in Aotearoa New Zeland and what a great opportunity! I will definitely be looking more closely model to see how we can taylor to suit our audiences both rural or urban.Thanks heaps for the information and an chance to discuss this topic.Hei kona ra (catch u up)Tangata whenua (person of the land) Noho ora mai (
tbdiscovery - September 16, 2010 at 8:51 am
To supplement mbelvadi’s point, I think the fact that there will be such interaction between librarians and students from the beginning will make the library more friendly – not just a meeting place, but an understanding of the resource utopia that libraries are. In this light, personal librarians could come up with a template e-mail to introduce themselves, provide similar information and resources on a dedicated Web page or FaceBook page, and then also acknowledge that while the students are in the library, anyone at the Info Desks would be more than willing to assist. It would be akin to having the star professor introduce topics to the whole cadre of students, while the Info Desks could serve as a quasi recitation.
katmurphy - September 16, 2010 at 10:25 am
I have been telling students, and even their parents, every year since we started the “Your Personal Librarian” program at Wilson College that it was unique – apparently not so! We started it about 2004 and I must admit that we thought it was something that could only work at a college as small as ours (under 600 FTE). Kudos to those of you who are doing this with much larger populations! Perhaps we should think of this as a “teachable moment” similar to the beginning of the Freshman Seminar or First Year Experience trend in higher education. It would be great to get together with other schools who do this and confab about our programs or introduce it to others who would like to try it.
kgschneider - September 17, 2010 at 4:03 pm
What a great idea this is!
pt8105 - September 17, 2010 at 9:52 pm
An online librarian is an invaluable resource in light of the tight budgets and reduced services on college campus. The university library where I study for my graduate program was closed on Saturday during the summer semester. The library does not have an online librarian but it would have been extremely valuable to my research. Hopefully, all research institution will follow suit and establish a personal librarian system.