Timothy Simmons, First Year Experience Librarian for University Libraries, knows a thing or two about bringing students in the doors. Simmons, whose position is housed in the Research and Instruction Department, was hired for the newly created First Year Experience Librarian position in 2013. From the start, his primary focus was introducing students in English 101, 102 and University 101 to the Libraries and available resources.
“In the early days, I had to figure out a way to make those classes very distinct,” Simmons said, “because we could very easily have had the same student in both U101 and English 101 that semester.”
The first step for incoming freshman getting to know the library is to take a library tour with their class. This tour, led by Simmons or a member of his team, is aimed at getting the students in the doors of the library but also teaches them about the resources that are available to them. This can include services they have never heard of, or those they may have heard of but forgotten were available.
Covering so much information in a single tour requires a lot of planning, especially when dealing with classes like English 101 and 102 that have hundreds of sections each semester. According to Simmons, over the course of the semester he must coordinate with up to 100 people at a time to get librarians in the classroom for an introduction session.
Even students who don’t receive library instruction through a first-year class have opportunities for research support from Simmons. An English 102 instructor recently reached out to Simmons to convey a student’s appreciation of the libraries’ services.
“I teach ENGL 101 and 102, and I always use your resources on the library page and encourage students to seek extra research help from you (and the research librarians, in general) if they want to,” said the instructor. “You specifically got a name-drop in one of my student’s reflections this term. He said visiting you was the ‘smartest thing’ he did all term. He also said you were very helpful with guiding him to focus the scope of his research.”
At the end of the day, Simmons wants students to know that the library, and the librarians, are there for them. Even if students get introduced to the library as freshman and forget everything that is available to them, librarians are still there to reiterate these services and lessons whenever students need them.
“They come in and they learn how to use quotes, how to manipulate the databases we have in the catalog or use truncation, and then they have a semester where they don’t have any research and they forget it all,” said Simmons. “So, they may come back their junior year and we remind them of skills they have learned previously. We provide this service as a consistent service that they have trust in, and that makes them feel more comfortable talking to us.”
Simmons and his team want to cement the idea in student’s heads that they are there to help them be better students, whether that be through quality research, essays or projects. “It is an overwhelming experience to try and pull together a research paper that you may not really know that much about the subject you’re writing about,” said Simmons. “But there are people here that can help you.”
Supporting students as they explore different ways to find and evaluate information helps them be better at life, according to Simmons. “If I’m even partially successful in inspiring confidence in their research abilities, then my career as FY librarian will have been a meaningful and fulfilling one.”