Purpose Discussion of a 2015-16 University of Washington Libraries project focused on understanding the needs and challenges of transfer students on the Seattle campus and developing innovative ways to support transfer student success. Design/methodology/approachThe study employs design thinking methods, including interviews and rapid iterative prototyping and feedback, to understand and emphasize the user experience. FindingsTransfer students at the Seattle campus identify themselves as a unique group separate from other undergraduates because of their prior experience, shortened timeline at the university, and their need to balance academic, work, and family commitments. Because transfer students often have little time to learn about and effectively use campus resources, the authors found that working with campus partners to enrich transfer-specific student orientations and events with educational and practical content was the most effective means of supporting new students. Research limitationsThis pilot study was conducted over an 11-month period with a small number of participants, but the iterative nature of design thinking allowed the authors to gather new feedback from a variety of students and staff at each phase. Originality/valueThis study showcases how design thinking methods can increase understanding of transfer student and other user needs. The design thinking approach can also enable the rapid development of library and campus services, as well as outreach efforts, to meet user needs.

This study examines the effect of library instruction on two sections of the same senior-level electrical engineering course in analog integrated circuit design. One section received a onehour library instruction session while the other section did not. The premise of the study is that inclusion of library instruction will result in higher utilization of scholarly resources in the students' final projects for which they were required to design, analyze, and simulate a circuit that meets a given set of specifications. The results confirm that the section that received library instruction consulted and cited more scholarly resources than the section that received no training in use of library resources. We also found a positive correlation between the students' use of scholarly materials and their final project grade.

The authors discusses the experiments they conducted at the University of Washington (UW) on both traditional and unconventional methods of reaching out to library users. Among the efforts tried by the authors were going outside of a library to meet users in their spaces and employing virtual library on the Internet. Another method is an adventure game called geocaching intended for global positioning systems (GPS) users. The authors cited social networking as an easy approach to reach out to library users.

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The article presents information on the Safari Tech Books Online. The Safari Tech Books Online is a partnership between O'Reilly Media Inc. and the Pearson Technology Group. It contains a collection of computer manuals and other technical reference books. To easily scan the content of a book featured in the Safari Tech Books Online, a table of contents with links to each chapter for easy browsing is provided.