“But, We Don't Have a Library”: Exploring Approaches to Addressing Branch Campuses’ Library Needs

Abstract

Librarians at Central Oregon Community College's Barber Library explored how to best serve the needs of three satellite campuses across a large geographic region. While initially intending to start an embedded librarianship program, a pair of surveys showed the relationships and awareness necessary for the foundation of such a program were lacking. Using the information gathered in the surveys, the authors attempted to identify and implement methods for building better relationships and greater library awareness across all campuses.

Flexibility in Outreach

“…The results highlighted the importance of faculty relationships as reflected in the literature (Cunningham & Lanning, 2002;Øvern, 2014;Thi Lan & Tuamsuk, 2018) since many classes on the auxiliary campuses are taught by part-time and adjunct faculty who do not receive the same level of outreach to familiarize them with library resources and services, and because students frequently rely on faculty for guidance on where and how to search for information. Additionally, students reported that getting started with research was one of the most difficult skills and expressed that they would take advantage of a librarian who was available to answer assignment-specific questions (see Hostetler and DeSilva, 2016, for a full report of the survey findings).…”