Amid staff vacancies, injuries, illness, famine and pestilence, librarians at Camden County College struggled valiantly through the spring and early summer to produce an Action Plan to guide our activities for the next two years. We'll report our progress here and in our newsletter, available on the website, http://library.camdencc.edu. Our Top 10 Goals are these:
- The librarians will produce an online Information Literacy Tutorial.
The most efficient way to introduce information literacy to as many students as possible is to develop an online tutorial aimed at teaching students how to find, evaluate and use information. The tutorial will directly address the College’s strategic initiative to “promote information literacy through technology deployment, and integration of library activities with course goals” (Camden County College 16).
- The librarians will align resources and services with Student Learning Outcomes.
The College’s mandate to list information literacy as an outcome for all general education courses has major implications for the Library. The librarians will work with faculty to ensure that the Library has the resources and services in place to achieve this goal. Librarians will conduct faculty workshops through the Teaching Learning Center to update faculty on key library resources needed to achieve desired information literacy outcomes.
- The librarians will select and implement a Federated Search Tool.
Federating searching is a new development in information technology that allows the researcher to search multiple online resources using a single search interface. This tool will make searching library resources more Google-like and should have much appeal to students.
- The librarians will acquire and make available New Collection Resources using funds gained by canceling items that are no longer needed.
Items to be acquired through leasing arrangements include a College-wide online subscription to the Chronicle of Higher Education, a College-wide online subscription to the Wall Street Journal, the PsycArticles full-text journal article database, and the McNaughton Leased Leisure Reading Collection.
- The librarians will introduce real-time Online Reference Services.
Students will be able to use the library web site to ask questions via an online chat session with a librarian. This service is intended to match preferred student communication styles.
- The librarians will use a new software application to transform traditional resource guides into more dynamic web-based LibGuides.
Librarian-authored LibGuides will be added to the library web site as a way to help students use library resources. Some guides will be directly related to course assignments and others will be subject related. Podcasts and screencasts will be incorporated into the guides. Each guide will also allow users to ask questions and to make comments.
- The librarians will plan and implement a Library Liaison Initiative.
At least one librarian will be assigned to each Academic Division and will attend division meetings to better understand the needs of each division and to share information about Library resources and services. The Liaison will also be available to work with Division faculty in smaller groups or on an individual basis as needed. This will be another way for librarians to assist with information literacy student learning outcomes.
- The librarians will establish Faculty and Student Library Advisory Groups.
This outreach effort will be used to generate dialogue about how the library can best serve students, faculty and staff and to gather feedback about what works and doesn’t work in the delivery of library services.
- The librarians will refine the Library Web site and Library Catalog by incorporating new technologies and conducting usability studies.
The library web site and library catalog serve as the gateway to the College’s academic information resources. The librarians will take advantage of new developments in information technology to keep the web site and catalog accurate, well designed and user friendly. Usability studies will be conducted to get user feedback regarding the success of these efforts, and the feedback will be used to continue refining the web site and catalog.
10. The librarians will gather and analyze statistical data regarding library services and resources to help with planning and decision making.
The library’s licensed subscription resources offer access to detailed usage statistics that will be used to generate reports to help determine which resources are most useful. The librarians will also generate statistical reports about requests for library cards, web site usage, circulation of materials, and activity at service desks.
--From “Making an Impact: Action Report 2008-2010”, Camden County College Libraries, August, 2008.