Rowan Digital Works

Learning communities involve collaboration, not only across academic departments, but also across other institutional resources that serve student needs. Extensive documentary evidence suggests that effective learning communities have important benefits for students and faculty. Faculty benefits include diminished isolation, a shared purpose, and cooperation among faculty colleagues. Smith, MacGregor, Matthews, and Gabelnick (2004) Lenning, O. T., & Ebbers, L. H. (1999). Teaching in a learning community opens many doors for librarians. Librarians at Delaware Tech have taught in learning communities since 2010. Collaborations with English, ESL, Math, Engineering, Business, Veterinary and Sociology departments have proven to be highly successful and are a great way for librarians to get “out of the library”, further develop teaching skills, and forge new relationships with some unlikely partners. We have taught First Year Seminar, Diversity and the College Experience, as well as our own Research Strategies course. This collaborative way of teaching has proven successful by not only facilitating professional development and generating collegial relationships, but has resulted in a noticeable upsurge in library usage by students and faculty from a variety of disciplines.

When a library user finds an electronic resource that is not properly configured for access through Ezproxy, an error message states that a host error has occurred. This error message, full of text and technical jargon, can be confusing to users. The page also does not give users an easy option to report the problem or a way to navigate back to where they started. As a result, Electronic Resources staff at Rowan University rarely received notifications of host errors from users. In order to improve user experience and correct host errors, a Google Form was created and customized to automatically capture the technical information needed to resolve the error and give users the option of providing more information, such as their name and email. Eresources staff further customized the form to generate an email containing data from the form and integrate that email into the support ticketing system. Later to improve security and support system integration, the form was moved from Google forms to Rowan’s own server. Since implementation in October 2017, data has proven this tool’s usefulness and uncovered many problems ranging from the expected host errors, to full EZproxy stanza updates, and even flaws in discovery systems. The various implementations of this project, from fast, free, and simple options to more advanced and secure options, may be useful for many libraries. By collaborating with library users to uncover errors, Eresources staff has improved user experience, access, and efficiency for Rowan University’s libraries.

After a long period of exploration, in 2015, Cabrini University added an information literacy component to its freshman seminar, Engagements with the Common Good (ECG). Librarians teach 25% of the course. Class content mirrors the progress of the course topic, which varies by professor. This requires that the librarian go beyond the traditional supportive role of providing students with skills necessary to complete course assignments, and make significant contributions to the teaching and learning of course topics and themes.

Overall response to the component is favorable, but librarians note challenges that impact the quality of the course. Currently four librarians teach weekly in 13-18 sections in addition to their other duties. The signature writing assignment structure is inconsistent across sections. Syllabus changes leave librarians scrambling to adjust lesson plans with short notice. Librarians and faculty have been asked to design an online version of ECG, a class that has relied on face-to-face “learning communities” of students, for an all-online major. In response to these challenges, we consider possible improvements in course content delivery, including schedule variations, staffing changes, and reworking our relationship with the professor and the course.

Our poster will speak to the evolution of this course – how we got to this point, changes we’ve made in response to what we’ve learned, and the new challenges we anticipate going forward.

Campbell Library, the Glassboro Campus branch of Rowan University Libraries houses a physical collection of over 300,000 books and DVDs. Two years ago, Campbell Library conducted the first inventory of this collection in almost two decades. This inventory uncovered approximately 8500 missing items. This discovery lead us to ask the questions: What is our policy on missing items? How long should missing items remain in the catalog? Should missing items be viewable in the OPAC? Can these items be replaced? It was quickly realized that there was no guidance or past policy in regards to reconciling missing items in the catalog. This lead to an ongoing project developed through the collaboration of two departments within Campbell Library, Technical Services and Access Services.

After a discussion between staff from Access and Technical Services, with input from Library Administration and Collection Development, a preliminary plan was developed and a schedule created. The schedule dictates when the collection will be checked for missing items, when the records of missing items will be suppressed or removed from the catalog, and when subject specialist librarians will be notified of items which require replacement.

Once the plan was in place, Technical Services initiated the project by compiling reports of items marked as lost or missing by the LMS or staff. Access Services staff were given the reports and charged with developing and executing workflows for conducting periodic searches for lost or missing items and updating the statuses of items which are found or determined to be still lost. This allowed staff members in Technical Services to generate new lists which were then used to notify subject specialists of items that required replacement.

Upon the completion of the first cycle, approximately 6,300 missing items were deleted from the catalog. This continuous project aims to improve user experience through identifying items that require replacement and ensuring that the OPAC provides the most accurate representation of the collection.