The library’s role in recruitment and retention

Citation

Mitchell, E. and Barbara Watstein, S. (2013), "The library’s role in recruitment and retention", Reference Services Review, Vol. 41 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/rsr.2013.24041baa.001

The library’s role in recruitment and retention

Article Type: Editorial From: Reference Services Review, Volume 41, Issue 2

Academic libraries have long served as repositories of scholarship, sources of expertise, and quiet places for individual study and research. More recently, libraries have become gateways to an ever-broadening array of information, hives of collaboration, hubs for scholarly creation, and communal gathering destinations for students. Library spaces support solitary study, active and technologically enhanced collaboration, and large group learning. Cultural and academic events and social programs are logical extensions of the library’s role, taking advantage of a captive audience in this place – physical and virtual, where disciplines converge and everyone is welcome. In many ways, the library is the campus compressed.

In partnership with other campus offices, academic libraries can play an expansive role in the recruitment of students through the power of their physical and virtual presence.

Potential students (and parents) visiting the library on the campus tour expect to see more than books and computers. Comfortable? Check. Clean? Check (depending on the time of day). Well-lighted, technologically current spaces, with cafes and displays of art and scholarship? Increasingly, check, check, and check.

During the visitors’ rapid walk through, the library has only a few minutes to both differentiate and distinguish itself and the institution. The challenge is to demonstrate to these visitors the role of the library in the life of the student – to help them imagine themselves studying here, having coffee there, attending a class in this room, or creating a presentation in that one; find resources, obtain guidance, browse current fiction, or drop by a poetry reading. On the trip home, after the whirlwind college tour, will anything from your library stand out in the minds of the prospective student family?

Step into the virtual realm. During the visitors’ rapid click through your library’s Website, how will you differentiate and distinguish yourself and your institution? Much has been written about college and university recruiting websites. The focus of these outreach efforts has traditionally been on college or university sports – basketball, football, soccer and the like. Increasingly, however, multi-focus approaches have been advocated to reach recruitment goals. Increasingly, academic advisors as well as professional and academic toolboxes that support successful recruitment strategies, include libraries in these multi-focus approaches to finding and recruiting students. Click through your institution’s immersive and interactive 360 degree virtual campus tour – assuming, of course, you have one, or something like it, that allows you to explore your campus as if you were actually there. No worries – it’s easy – open the tour to get started, then click and drag in any direction to explore each image. Use the thumbnail images to make your way around your campus and learn more about the campus and all you have to offer. After the tour, what do you think from your library stands out in the minds of the prospective student family?

This issue of RSR is a theme issue focusing on the role of the library in the recruitment and retention of students. Theme issue guest editors, Ms Anne Barnhart and Ms Andrea Stanfield, both from the University of West Georgia, provide an overview of the topic and the issue in their editorial.

The issue also includes other manuscripts that cover a wide range of topics. F. Donnelly draws readers’ attention to the American Community Survey and its practical considerations for researchers. A. Graber, S. Alexander, M. Bresnahan, and J. Gerke report on reference data accuracy. M. L.Hsieh, S. McManimon, and S. Yang consider faculty-librarian collaboration in improving the information literacy of Educational Opportunity Program students. K. O’Clair addresses the challenge of preparing graduate students for graduate-level study and research. M. Sweeney considers ready reference technologies as cultural artifacts. Last, J. Thornton and E. Thornton assess state government financial transparency websites. We believe the result is a wonderfully rich issue which promises to engage readers from across the spectrum.

Eleanor Mitchell, Sarah Barbara Watstein