Session Description:
Are you ready to reimagine a program or department in your library? Faced with budget cuts, staff reallocation, and institutional restructuring, we evaluated and re-envisioned our library’s 15-year-old Education & Outreach program. We solicited input from both within the library and across campus to help shape new directions for our program. We will share our experiences conducting a program evaluation including an environmental scan, survey, focus groups, interviews, and a staff retreat. Join us and become equipped to conduct your own timely, thoughtful, thorough, effective, and efficient program evaluation.

Session Description:
Using quantitative and qualitative data from all baccalaureate- and master’s-granting institutions, this session focuses on what academic library directors have to say about their leadership development experiences in their last five positions leading to the directorship. Surprising results emerge from the data, which have important implications for what specialization librarians choose, for how leadership opportunities involve mid-level academic library professionals, and the consequences these data suggest for how race and gender may factor into leadership development opportunity.

Session Description:
Scholarship about design thinking and academic libraries tends to focus on how librarians can deploy design thinking to improve library services or spaces. However, there is a lack of scholarship about libraries partnering with campus departments to support the unique needs of design thinking curricula. Since 2014, an academic library serving a private, 4-year institution has collaborated with campus faculty to host a studio to support design thinking courses. This paper will share how the library supports design thinking curricula through a dedicated physical space, recruiting and evaluating course proposals, matching appropriate subject librarians, developing organizational infrastructure, and evaluating outcomes.

Session Description:
Learning analytics is the “measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of [student and other data] for the purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs.” Libraries are pursuing LA insights to evaluate the impact of library services, collections, and spaces on student learning. But as institutions continue to surface granular data and information about student life, the risk to student privacy grows. Find out what students think of learning analytics and how such practices intersect with their privacy expectations. This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Session Description:
Escalating textbook costs are of increasing concern to faculty and administrators. Survey responses of 1,975 students found that 53% “frequently” or “occasionally” had not purchased a textbook due to cost. This environment served as the impetus for a History faculty member to transition to an OER, as well as a study examining the impact of that adoption on student academic outcomes and behaviors. Attend this session to hear about using the COUP Framework to assess impact of OER adoption.  Practical tips on how to begin the discussion about textbook costs with faculty also will be offered.

Session Description:
Current research indicates 1 in 59 children in the United States has Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). As a result of the increased prevalence of ASD, a larger number of higher functioning ASD students are now participating in higher education. This presentation will describe how the transition into college can be potentially difficult for ASD students, and campus support services (including Disability Support Services)—while necessary for a successful transition—are often ill-equipped to meet the need. Attendees will find out how outreach, inclusion, and other initiatives by academic libraries can help ASD students with this transition and succeed in college.

Session Description:
ACRL recommends that librarians with faculty status have the same privileges and responsibilities as other faculty on campus. Previous study revealed librarians feel that being on an equal footing with other faculty improves their relationship. It is not clear whether teaching faculty feel the same way. The paper presents a recent research investigating faculty perceptions of academic librarians in two types of institutions: those granting and not granting librarians faculty status. We found that, among faculty who were aware of their local librarians’ status, a higher percentage perceived closer relationships. Librarians in-depth academic participation can help strengthen the faculty-librarian partnership.

Session Description:
Data and its management continues to grow in importance in academic libraries, and the focus is overwhelmingly on newly-produced digital data. However, data in paper or analog format exists across our campuses in varying locations and is equally important. With a focus on life sciences data, we have mainly explored analog material in selected labs and centers on campus and in the University Archives. We have discovered that it is an institutional asset although some is not well preserved, almost none is easily discoverable, quite a bit could be shareable, and some has high potential for reuse.

Session Description:
This paper will summarize 400+ responses to a student questionnaire used to assess an OER program. Students’ responses showed that they were concerned about textbook affordability, liked their open and affordable course content, and unanimously supported continuing the program. However, responses also suggested a reliance on mobile devices, the relative invisibility of library resources, and the need for education about copyright and potential piracy. In addition to having direct implications for the use of open and affordable materials, these results reveal information about students’ digital environment and the role of the library in their academic experience.

Session Description:
The standard professional credential for American librarians is a master’s degree in library science. Yet librarians, especially academic librarians, spend much of their time creating: everything from information literacy curricula to research projects and reference service models. And creation is the realm of design. This paper argues for recasting the narrative of academic librarianship as a design profession rather than a “library science.” Real-world examples will show how epistemological elements of design are already present in academic librarianship and how they align with and support academic librarianship’s focus on education and social justice.