When Tim Spears in his recent blog posting about what is a provost failed to mention LIS by name as part of his universe, I complained. And like any administrator worth his salt, he turned my complaint into an assignment for me to complete: write a guest blog entry that introduces his readership to LIS. I chose to write about an interesting conversation I had with a student at a lunch we had to meet some of the LIS students. (The post got picked up by MiddBlog, but attracted no comments, alas.) To continue that conversation in this space, I wonder what channels both formal and informal we have to make sure that our services stay aligned with evolving student needs and preferences.
We could do more to imbed our resources, by placing LIS portals/library search tools on individual faculty pages in Segue and by creating a structural link to LIS on academic department pages (in addition to the bottom-of-the-page spot shares with Banner, the College Store, etc..) The Library’s excellent subject guides shouldn’t be “deep-linked” as they are now on some department pages.
I think you’re off to a good start in meeting with students who work at LIS. because of their jobs they are a bit more aware of what goes on here and may have a better understanding of what’s available. I would suggest that you include the peer tutors who work at CTLR as well.