Public Services Pandemic Response
The Terrell Main Library Reference and Instruction staff have been busy providing support to faculty and students, helping ensure academic success despite everyone being scattered worldwide. Core reference members taught in the classroom, provided one-on-one research help through our chat services and research appointments, and helped facilitate access to many different types of online sources. This was done remotely as we used tools familiar to us and learned new ones which enhanced our ability to work remotely -- all while still providing outstanding service to faculty, students, and staff. Here is just a bit of what we accomplished this past semester.
156 Chats: 54% Students, 22% Faculty and Staff
9 Class Instruction Sessions and 87 students reached.
33 Research Appointments
In addition, we carried on the work of “library as community” by reaching out to Obies through daily posts on social media, participation in All In for Oberlin, and some very fun study break projects. We received positive feedback and sparked interest beyond Oberlin. Here are some stats and feedback reflecting the activity and reach of the team.
92 tweets, 66 Profile visits, 2 New Followers, 20.6K tweet impressions, 19 Mentions
Our Play Day Saturday featuring coloring book pages from libraries was our Top Tweet with 590 impressions
The coloring sheets sparked positive feedback and interest beyond Oberlin as seen in this inquiry.
While Core Ref was busy remotely, the circulation staff were essential on site workers providing access to many physical materials in our closed library. They retrieved material from various library locations and turned them into online resources so our students and faculty to complete their academic work. They made sure that students who lacked access to the technical tools they needed to work remotely had them. Their work was critical to the success of the faculty’s remote classrooms and to the student’s abilities to finish their semester projects. Here is just a sampling of what the circulation side of the MCT Public Service staff accomplished.
6330 pages from our print materials scanned and delivered to students and faculty since March 30th.
31 DVD’s digitized for OC classes and academic research.
19 Laptops shipped to students in need of the technology needed to work remotely.
25,000 books shift by one person
WTG Public Service staff, that’s a lot of students and faculty support.
