by Carla Pfahl
Quick Summary
Rachel Wightman, librarian for Normandale Community College, works as a liaison with faculty to identify key resources that are best suited for students’ coursework. She uses an array of resources that include the ELM databases to help students succeed in their studies.
Rachel Wightman, librarian for Normandale Community College, works as a liaison with faculty to identify key resources that are best suited for students’ coursework. She uses an array of resources that include the ELM databases to help students succeed in their studies. Academic Search Premier is one of the more popular databases. She keeps faculty informed of new resources and instructional availability throughout the semester via meetings, emails, and in-person discussions. In-class instruction sessions keep her busy as well.
Rachel says Normandale librarians are all liaisons to divisions within the divisions and each librarian maintains good relationships with their division and faculty. Faculty appreciate the instruction librarians provide and are receptive to what they’re teaching the students. Rachel is currently preparing an instruction session for next week on researching careers and says she will rely heavily on LearningExpress Library’s Career Center and Job & Career Accelerator.
The reference desk is the place where she is able to connect with students and provide any one-on-one instructional needs at that time. ELM’s LearningExpress Library is used a lot at the reference desk. Here, she is able to provide the introduction to the resource with guided information on setting up an account and access to the various learning centers. The Career Center’s entrance and occupation exams such as the NCLEX, TEAS, PTA, and Nursing Assistant, are the most accessed and highlighted resources at the reference desk. They have placed a link to LearningExpress Library and Atomic Learning on their library’s homepage because they are so different from other library resources. They provide added information on LEL’s College Center, Career Center, Computer Skills Center, and Job & Career Accelerator to help students get started.
Their reference desk has stayed busy over the years while so many other libraries have reported a decline in questions. While the overall number of questions has decreased slightly, statistics for research-related questions have gone up and are taking, on average, 20 minutes or more. Questions are more in-depth in nature and less directional. They have seen this with their online chat reference service as well. Since the 2013 academic school year, there has been a 33% increase in the number of one-on-one reference questions for more than 20 minutes and an 84% increase in the number of questions asked and answered virtually. Their chat widget is included on all research guide webpages and the service is mentioned in class instructional sessions as well.
Another thing Rachel and the other librarians are preparing for is the Writing Festival held each year in the spring that involves several faculty and library liaisons. They participate in the free event which is for the Normandale community and the public at large with hourly presentations on all aspects of writing. The library participates with sessions on Introduction to Research and Research & Writing. For now, the semester is just past the half-way point and they have many more instruction sessions lined up and have both the reference desk and chat service well-staffed to meet the needs of their students and faculty.
