If You're Not Connecting, You're Missing Opportunities!
With all the noise from the various and ever-multiplying communication channels out there, it's getting harder to make real connections. If you want any chance of getting heard, you'll need to pull people out of their tunnels and attract their focus. But, if you can manage to engage students in your instruction sessions, lifelong learning is not far behind.
So what do we suggest?
- Give your students access to the library so they can feel connected to you. Share your LibAnswers SMS number. They have questions so let's make sure they trust that they can get answers.
- Don't give students the run around. Connect your systems so they don't have to keep hunting around a bunch of different sites, getting lost on too many interfaces.
The goal is to establish a link to your students. Make interacting with the library as seamless as possible.
LibAnswers - Send a Message!
The LibAnswers Platform is the total solution with carefully considered components designed to help your patrons communicate with you via their preferred method of reaching out (email, phone call, chat, social media, etc.). But if you want to share a real "we're here for you" vibe, advertise your SMS number in your instruction sessions! Put it on any handouts. Make sure it's at the top of any in-class boards. Feature it on your LibGuides and LibAnswers systems. Get that SMS number that ties to your LibAnswers queue into your LibWizard quizzes and tutorials. You're teaching today? Ask your classroom attendees to go ahead and put your library's SMS number into their phones so they can ask you questions on the go via text.
Pew Research Center said in a recent mobile fact sheet that, "The vast majority of Americans - 96% - now own a cellphone of some kind." According to an article from Text Request, "On average, Americans send and receive about 94 text messages per day." So, stay connected with your patrons. The next time they have a question for the library, they'll feel free to ask it in the most familiar way.
E-Reserves - Out of Sight Out of Mind.
You know there's some real logic to this expression. This is why it's important that you provide your students with a seamless way to get to your reserve items. E-Reserves from Springshare allows your students to go from using your LibGuides to checking out the pertinent course specific readings, images, etc. in a flash. It's about the connection. Plus, embed relevant course-specific content right inside Blackboard, Moodle, Sakai, Canvas, or any LTI-compliant learning management system. Natively.
So, don't make them have to go to some other interface when they're already on your carefully curated guides. They can search your E-Reserves from the LibGuides home page, from within specific tabs on guides or in your LMS. Your librarians will love the all-in-one workspace, too!
How the Springshare K-12 Smart School Suite Keeps Students Centered.
K-12 school libraries have specific needs. They are super busy places and they're focused on a very young, dynamic population who are likely getting their first taste of really using the library for research and projects. With so many students to focus on, it can be tough to keep your efforts connected. One of the objectives we support for their librarians is to provide a triple pronged solution that helps school libraries offer a tightly knit Smart School Suite that includes LibGuides, LibWizard and LibCal 5.
- How useful would it be if students could peruse a LibGuide curated for them by their librarian on Elections or Planets or Shakespeare?
- Then take a graded quiz made in LibWizard that is embedded into the LibGuide to show how they've learned to use the databases the librarian included in the guide. They've watched the videos and checked out some of the links and are even going to try to check out a book that was suggested.
- Finally, how cool would it be if they could also book an appointment to talk about what they doesn't understand, or if they could register for an event the library was having, or reserve some time on one of the in-library computers through LibCal?
The Springshare Smart School Suite includes the tools to make this scenario possible. Plus they can easily be integrated so that the central focus is on the student's instruction experience.
