When a class in agribusiness marketing at Purdue University was presented with the opportunity to apply principles and strategies to a real-world project, three business librarians and one agriculture librarian joined the class to strengthen the research skills of the students. This proactive embedded librarian approach combined conventional classroom instruction with semester-long monitoring and research assistance on a point-of-need basis. The interdisciplinary embedded librarian team differs from our traditional role; some aspects were highly effective, but we also learned what to do differently in the future.

This article examines an initiative to increase the awareness and usage of the business databases available at Purdue University among the faculty and graduate students. When users are not aware of the databases that are available to them through library endeavors, they look elsewhere for the information they need. That lack of awareness and subsequent nonuse of subscription databases affect faculty, student, and even librarian success. The ensuing low usage statistics result in high cost-per-use figures and can result in the cancellation of high-quality online resources. With the objective of raising faculty awareness to increase usage of these databases, a simple marketing strategy was undertaken wherein a weekly e-mail highlighting one database at a time was sent to faculty throughout the academic year. The faculty's positive reactions and increased usage demonstrate the effectiveness of this kind of promotion. Examination of the results also proves to be an aid in collection analysis and supports further use of this marketing tool.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract