Toronto-Ryerson-York University TRY Conference, May 7 2013, Toronto

Keeping It PersonalSupporting collaboration, assessment, and efficiency in a large personal librarian pilot

Ken Yang, Jacqueline Whyte Appleby & Rita Vine

TRY Conference 2013

Why a Personal Librarian?

• FTE of 77,000 across three campuses

• 15,000 incoming freshmen each year

• No common first year program

Another way to reach outAutomated large-scale outreach

Low effort, surprising valueBetter understanding of

incoming students

Why a Personal Librarian?

How Students Benefit

Engage with collections

Get help

navigating the

system

Meet someone

who cares and

can helpTake the next step

toward academic success

PL Programs at Other Places

• Yale University– 5 years

undergraduates (1100)

– 16 years – Medicine

• Drexel– 2600 undergraduates

• Many smaller universities

• Our own St. Mikes Kelly Library

Best Practices

• Emails must be personalized

• Email message content and timing is important

• Project works best when automated

– low-touch by individual librarians except to respond to emails

UTL Personal Librarian Pilot

• 5 months from conception to implementation

• Re-purposed a home-grown mass email system

• 10 librarians, 1000 students

Closer connections to FAS

• New connections to FAS registrar

• Supported every stage of our work

– Notified & encouraged students

– Provided feedback on timing, emails

• Access to FAS survey system

• Commitment to match to anonymized GPA for assessment

The system

http://personal.library.utoronto.ca



Email timeline

• “Hello from your PL” Sept. 20

• “Hello again from your PL” Oct. 29

• “Exam season suggestions” Nov. 20

• “Library support this term” Feb. 4

• “A final note from you PL” April 5

• “Final PL Survey–win a gift card!” April 8

What Did the Librarians Do?

• 90-minutes of training, Q&A

• Waited for students to contact them

• Submitted online post-encounter feedback via Soundings survey software

• Challenges

– September-heavy activity

– Not 100% feedback loop

– Post-encounter survey time consuming, redundant

Librarians said the PL pilot was…

• a good chance to interact with students for those not in service positions

• a rewarding experience, as students did seem to learn from it

• a good opportunity to see what first year students know, and what they need

Student Participation

• Unique student participants 199

• Opt-outs 2

• Number of questionsfielded (approx) 330

What’s the conversation?

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Research in Detail

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Known Topic Consultation or Workshop

General Help Help searching database

Known Book title

Known Journal title

Students said….

To what extent did your most recent interaction with your personal librarian meet your expectations?

Overall, how would you rate your most recent interaction with your personal librarian?

Based on this interaction, how likely are you to get in touch with your

personal librarian if you have further questions?

“My personal librarian was awesome!”

It's a great program, I just personally never used it because I would rather do things on my own.

Although i didn't contact my librarian often, the environment in which the librarian created for me …reassured me that University of Toronto really cared for each individual.

It was really great to be able to have this service available to me throughout my first year. I was able to grasp how to search through the catalogues on my own and how to find the source in the library as well!

I didn't actually contact my librarian, but I found comfort knowing that I had her as a contact if I ever needed her.

“Good job, guys!”“This experience was definitely one of the biggest factors that helped me in my transition from high school to university….”

“She was great. Great program to implement, the libraries at uoft can at times be too overwhelming. “

“It was nice to know a someone was always there for you.”

“It was great to have someone to contact when I needed help. Her e-mails around exam periods were awesome and opened my eyes to what is available at the University of Toronto…”

“It was a very good system, and I got a lot of help from my personal librarian regarding finding research for a voice presentation. “

Match students’ programs of study to the right librarian

Email isn’t “personal” enough / emails too generic

I’m a science student so I didn’t need a PL

I didn’t use the program (but I probably should have)

The librarian didn’t reply at all / soon enough

Wished that I could meet my librarian in person

Room for Improvement

I was glad to have a personal librarian this year

A great deal17%

Mostly20%

Moderately30%

Somewhat19%

Not at all14%

Having a Personal Librarian helped me

understand how librarians can help me

A great deal18%

Mostly24%

Moderately22%

Somewhat20%

Not at all16%

Having a Personal Librarian made me feel like the University cared about my academic success.

A great deal17%

Mostly29%

Moderately20%

Somewhat17%

Not at all17%

I know I can get help from my Personal Librarian when I need it.

0%

Definitely43%

Probably27%

Possibly21%

Probably Not4%

Very Probably Not5%

I would recommend the Personal Librarian program to other first year students.

0%

Definitely33%

Probably29%

Possibly25%

Probably Not9%

Very Probably Not4%

Overall, the Personal Librarian program was

0%

Excellent19%

Above Average26%

Average44%

Below Average6%

Very Poor5%

So, Now What?

• Expand to 2000 students, 20 librarians

• Add another faculty library to test independent administration of project

• Simplify encounter feedback for librarian participants

• Improve assessment data collection

• Modest modifications to software

Software Modifications for Next Year

Additional fields

• Nickname field for student record


Additional fields

• Notes field for student record

Supporting distributed administration

• Student groups outside FAS displayed independently

• Unique email template for each group

– Headers and footers customized


Improved software performance and interface

• Emails will be queued, and delivered from the mailing queue



Improved software performance and interface

• Progress bar indicating emails sent and email on queue

What You Can Do

• U of T librarians – interested in becoming a PL?

• Other U of T libraries – want to join the pilot?

• Ryerson and York – Questions?

[email protected]

Thank you!

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]


Toronto-Ryerson-York University TRY Conference, May 7 2013, Toronto

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Transcript of Toronto-Ryerson-York University TRY Conference, May 7 2013, Toronto