Academic librarians and library staff relish the opportunity to provide high quality research assistance to students. However, only a fraction of students will reach out to the library for help in any given year. Furthermore, students may struggle to articulate the type of assistance they need especially if they are new or first-time library users. This presentation will explore how we can encourage students to ask for help and empower them to do so more effectively. The presenter will explore how academic libraries can promote the availability and approachability of their staff as well as propose ideas for how we can encourage students to maximize the effectiveness of their requests. The goal of this presentation is to encourage attendees to think creatively about how they may increase both the quality and quantity of research consultations at their library.

This session was presented live and recorded at TCAL 2020 on August 12, 2020.
Click here to access the recorded session.

Elisabeth White – Science, Technology, and Mathematics Librarian, Towson University
Elisabeth White is the Science, Technology, and Mathematics Librarian at Towson University. In this role, she serves as the liaison librarian to the majority of Towson’s STEM departments and programs. She has been in this role since January 2019. Prior to becoming a librarian, Elisabeth worked as an assistant at a public library, a K-12 math tutor, and a laboratory technician in a biomedical engineering lab. Her research interests include information literacy instruction in the laboratory setting, accessibility in library instruction, and diversity and inclusion in collection management.