Library A Week

Parkland College Library

2010 no. 13

Library Profile

Library Name: Parkland College Library Location: 2400 W. Bradley Ave., Champaign, IL         Type: Academic Mission: The mission of the Parkland College Library is to provide services and resources that support the educational goals and purpose of Parkland College. The Library is dedicated to providing the highest quality service, resources, and environment for the students, faculty, and staff of the College, and for community members of District 505. Library Website: http://www.parkland.edu/library LTLS Directory Page: http://www.lincolntrail.info/zpn.html LTLS Member Since: 1974   An interview with Director, Anna Maria Watkin.

What is unique about your library?

We strive to excel in customer service, and to make sure our patrons receive assistance with a personal touch. We get feedback from students that say they feel welcome in and supported by the library, which is very important to us. We focus on helping and teaching the student to find information, just directing them to the collection, and we want to make the library an experience, not just a place. We extend our service ideals out of the library and have an online presence as well. Within the library, we have set up spaces that accommodate different learning styles. With group study areas, comfortable lounge areas, and the whole 3rd floor for silent study, we think we have achieved that goal. What makes all this work is that we have a very strong, committed team of dedicated librarians and staff, and since we are such a small group, we closely work together to make the library and the services the best they can be for our patrons.

What are the primary goals and objectives of your library?

We are here to support students in their college career as well as faculty, staff and administration. Our service objectives go far beyond curriculum support although that is our primary goal. We are also here as a community resource; anyone living in District 505 can come in and apply for a Parkland library card and use our materials and computers. Support and promotion of lifelong learning is an important part of what we do. We have a very active information literacy program, and are working with the teaching faculty to embed information literacy into all areas of the curriculum. Every interaction at the information desk is a potential opportunity for teaching information literacy; this teaching happens outside the classroom all day long in the library. We also have an active student employee program. We have many international students and other students for whom this might be their first work experience. Therefore we mentor them and help them to understand their work in a holistic way that goes far beyond being a book-shelver or desk assistant. In addition, we do our best to keep our collection current, and we do a lot of weeding in order to meet this goal.

What cooperative efforts are you currently doing?

We are a governing member of CARLI (Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois) and a member of I-Share, the integrated library system for 76 of the CARLI member libraries. When we became an I-Share member several years ago, it really changed how we did things. It opened up so many resources to our students and the faculty and staff. With CARLI we've undertaken several cooperative collection projects and several librarians serve on CARLI committees and task forces. We have also worked with Champaign Public Library to bring prominent authors to the community. On campus, we work with many departments and student groups, and recently we piloted a "roving reference" service where librarians held office hours in the Writing Lab. We regularly host local high school classes, who come to the library for the day, use our resources, and get an introduction to the college library and the research process. We coordinate Parkland Reads, which is a one book, one college initiative and we actively seek programming partnerships across the campus and in the community. I believe that the library has to get out of the library in order to be seen; we don't wait for people to come to us!

Tell us a story about your library.

Parkland Reads is our one book, one college initiative. We are currently "reading" our third book and are in the process of choosing the next one. We have a cross department-committee that chooses the book, and it is unveiled during National Library Week. Our current book is The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. We not only focus on having the campus read the book, but we try to make it a part of many aspects of college life, for students and employees. Some professors teach the book in class, or use it as a supplemental text. We have teamed up with the UIUC to show different documentaries and movies that have the same themes or topics as the book. We try to make it more than a discussion group; a whole experience. It has worked very well for the past 3 years and we are looking forward to the next book.

If money were no object, what services would you add?

We feel that we do really well with what we have. We are providing the services we see needs for, and we have flexibility and enthusiasm to embrace innovation and so far our response time for piloting or taking on new projects is quite quick. Although we have some streaming online media access, having a movie video streaming service (like Netflix, but for libraries) would really enhance what we have to offer our students. We are currently working on getting a grant to start an institutional repository, and we look forward to having a centralized service that will allow us to collect, catalog, showcase and preserve the scholarship that is actively happening at the college. Students are always asking for a coffee bar, and if money were no object, I would make that a reality for them.

What is popular in your library?

I would say that the reference service is very popular with students; they really like the human interaction and individualized service we provide all the hours the library is open. In terms of space, the reading lounge is very heavily used, as is the current magazine lounge. The computers are hugely popular, which is why we’ve recently added laptops for check out. Believe it or not, the silent study floor is very popular with both students and employees. Some professors put textbooks and articles on reserve and those items get a lot of use. We have ebook readers that faculty and staff can and do use and we have a diverse movie collection which is very popular with all patron groups. And, last but not least, during finals week, our free coffee and tea is always a big hit.

How does your library use online tools to connect to your users?

We offer online reference using Meebo, so students can chat with a librarian. We have a news blog which feeds to the website. We are on twitter: RayTheLamp, and on Facebook. We subscribe to many online databases and those, as well as our Ask-A-Librarian service, are linked into our course management software.  We are currently working on getting online LibGuides up and running. We have also used Camtasia for online tutorials, and students seem to enjoy the convenience of call number texting and patron initiated interlibrary loan.

Request a visit to your library If you would like to set up a special date for us to visit your library contact LTLS Consultant Michelle Ralston Library of the Week is published by Lincoln Trail Libraries System, 1704 W. Interstate Dr., Champaign, IL 61822 217-352-0047  -   ltls@lincolntrail.info Executive Director: Jan Ison, Editorial and Design Team: Michelle Ralston and David Lottes

Comments

[Nancy Gaumer]

The Parkland Library is wonderful! The best part is our amazing library staff. They are all so helpful and friendly. I'm also one of the people who use the quiet study area for getting all those papers graded. The coffee bar would be very nice, yes!