Missing a trick? Faculty and admin staff induction

Conducting a 1-2-1 induction with a new member of faculty and talking about databases with several administrative staff who were completely in the dark about our offering has led me to question this week whether here at Judge we’re currently missing a trick when it comes to informing new (or existing) staff about our library and information services. Rather than just blogging about what I thought about this I decided to ascertain from my peers within business librarianship whether they were doing the same things as me or adopting alternative approaches. The responses I received were both interesting and illuminating…

common themes
Of the 30 or so responses I received, common themes emerged.  1-2-1 induction/initial training session with new academics and a tour of the library for those that request them seem to be the norm. The route to these sessions/tours was quite different though, being either automatically timetabled in by HR, or offered by library staff after scans of lists from HR or receiving ‘new starters’ information by email. For those faculty being offered optional (rather than timetabled) sessions this was largely coordinated via emails containing relevant links and information. It appears that take-up of this offer varies widely. Some people cited very low take-up, others cited 75%, suggesting that this may be very much dependent on choice of email wording and content.

the 1-2-1
Of the 1-2-1 session itself it seems to mainly be used  to introduce the range of e-resources and bibliographic software and tools that are available, as well as being an opportunity to highlight the teaching and training on offer. Several respondents mentioned that they made a point of establishing the faculty member’s research interests ahead of time in order to tailor the session and that finance faculty appear to be more engaged and interested. Session length varies from 20 minutes to 2 hours, but the average appears to be 30-45 minutes.

paperless?
I was interested to find that we are divided on the value of printed guides and handouts, some citing their value, others believing they are unread and a waste of time to produce. Having said that, those in favour stated that guides should be short and to the point.

the personal touch
Several respondents expressed the importance of making any contact with faculty as personal and warm as possible with a view to long-term professional relationships and collaboration. There was also active recognition of the fact that faculty coming away from the 1-2-1 feeling that library staff were helpful and could make their teaching and research lives easier was the most important outcome. Some respondents talked about happily knocking on faculty doors and introducing themselves, while others felt guilty for not knocking on doors or being proactive enough.

group inductions/refreshers
Group inductions for new staff at which library staff get a chance to introduce themselves and their services seem to occur less than 1-2-1′s. Some business librarians are also engaged in group refresher sessions for existing staff, but again in low numbers.

administrative staff
Most respondents do not offer inductions to admin staff as a matter of course, instead this only appears to be at the instigation of said staff member or if they are picked up on by library staff as particularly student-facing and therefore potentially useful in pointing students to what we offer. However, there was common agreement that we  don’t do enough for admin staff and that, as I myself felt, we are probably are missing a trick in this regard. Some respondents described these staff as more receptive and interested than faculty, others mentioned that we could be giving them help with their day-to-day work  and that they don’t know what is available or, moreover, that they are eligible to use it. This has been my experience here, with one admin staff member telling me that they had always thought “the library wasn’t for them”. I was a bit ashamed that they felt like this and I am now determined to turn that perception around by opening up and offering more to this forgotten or largely ignored user group. Not only should this assist them with their work but it should also make a difference to internal understanding of what it is we have and what it is we do – after all we can never have enough library advocates can we?

Thanks to everyone who responded to my email

What a difference 24 hours makes…

OK, so I’m a complete convert, after our misfire library induction yesterday I was feeling much less keen on the hands-on and longer session approach, but today its  a completely different story. I guess that the main change today was that  the PCs were already set-up in our portal so there was no way that the students could go wrong to start with. Also, the inclusion of the sentence ‘out of courtesy to presenters please don’t update your Facebook profile or read your email’ completely did the trick and we had an attentive audience, even in the 2pm after lunch sleep-slot! In both of today’s sessions the students listened, interacted, understood and were generally fab human beings. I could have hugged some of them for asking what, if I didn’t know any better, seemed like perfect planted questions! One more session to the fourth and final MBA stream tomorrow and I feel like I’ve finally cracked MBA induction. Only taken me 15 years.

The best thing about it is of course that  those who attended today’s sessions are as equipped as they can be information-wise at this point in the course, and as a result dbase usage, enquiries and footfall should theoretically increase. I’m a happy chappie – can you tell?! I would be happier but I now have a whole day’s worth of emails ahead of me before I go home.

Andy

That same old induction problem…

Its that time of year again and that same old question of how much or how little to say in student inductions. This year here at Judge Business School with our new MBA class we’ve decided to try something completely different to the usual 45 minute lecture theatre presentation come lecture, followed by library tour. Not only are we increasing the length of the session to 2 hours (plus an essential 15-minute break in the middle) so we can demonstrate our key databases but we’re also making as much as we can hands-on.

I remain to be convinced that is the best approach given that its their first week and many of them will be quite understandably distracted by other things, but this does respond directly to comments from last year’s MBAs that they wanted more than just a snapshot of the databases at the top of the year and I’m never going to turn down allocated teaching time.

Another important change is the decision to bill the first session as ‘Business Databases’ rather than ‘Library Induction’ in order to see if the level of enthusiasm and engagement is affected in any way.

Glazed and/or pleading faces will seal the fate of this new initiative!

Andy