LIBRARY OUTREACH AT RIT:
BRINGING THE LIBRARY AND
WRITING CENTER TO STUDENTS
Daniel Trout
Sheryl Kron Rhodes
2011 SUNYLA Conference
June 16, 2011
ABOUT THE ROCHESTER INSTITUTE
OF TECHNOLOGY (RIT)
Founded in 1829
 Private university located in Rochester, NY
 Nine colleges & institutes
 17,000+ students (Fall 2010)
 RIT emphasizes career education
& experiential learning
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ABOUT THE WALLACE LIBRARY
AT RIT
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Hub for research & information exchange
Four floors of books, periodicals, help desks, computers & other
electronic media, individual study carrels & small group rooms
Collections within Wallace Library include the Cary Collection, a
renowned library on printing history, the RIT Archive Collections,
& the VIA Lab, with access to workstations, printing, image
scanning, & an array of software as well as networked resources
Online access to catalog, electronic class reserves, 180+ electronic
research databases, digital art collections, & librarian-selected
Internet resources
Wireless access to electronic databases & full-text electronic
journals
Wallace Library received 2006 Excellence in Academic Libraries
Award from the Association of College & Research Libraries
“The first place to go when you need to know”
ABOUT RIT’S ACADEMIC SUPPORT
CENTER’S WRITING CENTER
Mission: To make students confident, creative,
& independent writers
 Free service to all RIT students
 No appointments necessary
 Instructional center: Goal is to support students’
efforts to become better writers
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ABOUT RIT’S SOL STUDY CENTER
Learning space open to all RIT students
 Focused on academic needs of first-year
students
 Located in residence hall area to bring academic
services, including the library, to students’
doorstep
 Services include math, physics, & writing tutors,
& library assistants
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PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN RIT & UNIVERSITY
AT BUFFALO’S (UB) DEPARTMENT OF
LIBRARY & INFORMATION STUDIES (LIS)
Practicum requesting LIS students listed on the
LIS department’s Practicum Website
 Practicum request for two students per quarter,
covering four nights per week (Monday–
Thursday), two hours per evening
 Practicum students received training on services
offered at library from subject librarians
 Practicum students worked at the reference
desk with subject librarians as part of the
practicum
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HOW THE PRACTICUM WORKED
Practicum students were given name tags to
identify themselves to students as
representatives of the Wallace Library
 A laptop was provided by the library for
practicum students to use in assisting students
with reference & research queries
 Hard copies of reference material handouts
(e.g., how to cite in APA & MLA style; maps of
the library layout; how to structure research)
were provided to give to students
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SERVICES PROVIDED BY LIS
PRACTICUM STUDENTS
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Research assistance using library’s online resources
(e.g., databases, catalog): Using information literacy
theories & methodologies, practicum students
demonstrated best practices in finding & evaluating
information needed by students using the Sol Center
Assistance in finding LibGuides: RIT subject librarians
began developing LibGuides to aid students in finding
the best sources on a wide variety of subjects; there is
both a Sol Study Center LibGuide & an APA/MLA usage
LibGuide
Assignment calculator: A program to help students
budget out time to write a paper; reprogrammed
calculator to incorporate LibGuides & up-to-date
information as part of the practicum learning
experience
WORKING WITH THE
SOL CENTER’S TUTORS
The math, physics, & writing tutors in the
Sol Center are RIT students & thus potential
links to RIT’s student body to increase outreach
& knowledge of the library services in the Sol
Center
 Often tutors’ friends would stop by the Center,
providing opportunities for practicum students
to introduce ourselves & the library-related
services provided
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WORKING WITH NATIONAL
TECHNICAL INSTITUTE FOR THE
DEAF (NTID) STUDENTS
NTID was the world’s first & largest technological
college for deaf & hearing-impaired students; one
of RIT’s eight colleges
 Different learning and teaching styles
 Reference interviews are conducted through an
interpreter, often one of the math, physics, or
writing tutors in the Sol Center
 Two preferred methods of saving information:
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E-mail
 Screenshots with cell phones
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PROMOTION OF LIBRARY SERVICES
IN THE SOL STUDY CENTER
Subject librarians promoted the new services to
faculty & students
 Library staff distributed print flyers to faculty
in the College of Liberal Arts each quarter
 Advertisement within the library were done via
flyers & a plasma screen ad in the library’s
entrance
 Library staff distributed flyers to first-year
students’ mailboxes via student senators
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METHODS OF FEEDBACK FOR
LIBRARY SERVICES PROVIDED
A very short paper survey requesting feedback
is given to each student seeking assistance
 Anecdotal evidence is gathered through
conversing with students & explaining what we do
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CHALLENGES
Majority of the students at RIT are not liberal
arts students and do not write research papers
 No marketing budget for this program;
advertising must be cost neutral
 No Facebook or Twitter accounts for the
library
as methods to interact with
students
 RIT runs on the quarter system, so classwork is
compressed into a 50% shorter period of time as
compared with semesters, resulting in a rush of
work at the end of each quarter; if students are
not versed in planning ahead, it can be difficult
to find the time required to research & write a
good paper
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SUCCESSES
Fall Quarter: One student
 Winter Quarter: Three students
 Spring Quarter: Three students
 Staffing was expanded in the Winter and Spring
quarters from two nights a week to four nights a
week
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FUTURE PLANS
Promote the services provided by the library in
the Sol Center through the First Year
Experience staff, who teach all first-year RIT
students
 Need to remember that this program will likely
follow a similar path to that of the Math &
Physics Tutoring program: initially coverage was
limited to only one or two nights per week & had
poor attendance, but the program now employs
three tutors each evening (Monday–Thursday)
for three hours each night—the program started
out small & grew
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FUTURE PLANS (CONTINUED)
Changes in RIT’s core curriculum will require more
writing in the future, meaning an increased need to
learn how to effectively search, find, & evaluate
information to produce quality research papers
 Continued staffing of the Sol Study Center
 New study center within the Global Village during
the Fall Quarter:
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Also sponsored by AIM (Academic Intervention
& Mentoring)
Larger population of upperclass students
Math/science tutors
Peer writing tutors
Library staffing