Low-Tech Works Too: Low-Tech Tools Help Science Students Collaborate in the Library

Abstract

<p>When Wright State University's Dunbar Library downsized its print index and reference collections it used its newly-acquired physical space to give students mobile whiteboards, brainstorming tables, group-use computers, and group work space. The results: increased chemistry student use of the library's physical facility for collaborative work and increased contact between the chemistry librarian and students for research consultations.</p>

<p>Since students have ready access to the Library's science databases in their labs and to most of the Library's journals online, they do not feel drawn to the physical library to start their research, even though they may need the assistance of an information professional without realizing that. However, they love to use the Library's new whiteboards and brainstorming tables to study and plan collaboratively. And while at the Library, they run into the chemistry librarian and suddenly remember that they need help searching SciFinder Scholar, or locating that 1990's journal article, or using a bibliographic management software, etc. </p>

<p>Thus the collaborative work space and tools together have become a way to draw the chemistry students to all of the Library's resources. Gate counts, interviews with Chemistry Club members, a survey of students in the undergraduate capstone course, and anecdotal evidence support the popularity and usefulness of these low-tech library improvements.</p>

<p>This poster was presented at the Special Libraries Association Annual Conference in Seattle, Washington on June 17, 2008.</p>