The “Typical” Empire State College Student Institute on Mentoring, Teaching & Learning (IMTL) Quantifying the Value of Academic Libraries Connecting the Library to Student Success Sara Hull, M.S.I.S., M.A., M.A. SUNY Empire State College Online Library Printed by SUNY Empire State College Print Shop  Adult  Working full- or part-time  Parenting children and/or caring for elderly parents  Many years have passed since last college courses were taken, if any  Lacks comfort with technology  Taking classes at a distance All of the above can negatively impact the student experience. When President Merodie Hancock joined the college, she initiated a college-wide discussion on improving student success and retention. In other words, “What can we do to make the student experience better?” Facilitated in a Mahara discussion forum, suggestions within the conversation included: Pre-enrollment assessment to identify academic needs Pre-enrollment advising to set expectations Universal orientation practices across locations & online “First-year” college writing programs and prerequisites CRM software to respond to “warning signs” leading to withdrawal Better communication standards for mentors/faculty More timely grading/evaluations to set expectations Pre-withdrawal advising to address issues such as impact on financial aid No mention was made of the library nor information literacy until a librarian joined the conversation. Student Success at Empire State College “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo?” The Empire State College Online Library has functioned within the college’s Office of Integrated Technologies since its inception in That changed in November 2014, after both a new VP of IT and a new Provost joined the college. To better align the library with the college’s academic mission, the library was moved from the Office of Integrated Technologies to the Office of Academic Affairs. At the same time, the Office of Academic Affairs began a major, years-long reorganization, and the college, under our new President, began a period of reinvention. While the ‘powers that be’ sort out those changes… the library has begun proactively strategizing ways to become more relevant, and to quantifiably demonstrate its connection to student success. “The (re)Freshman Year Experience” “Creating an Open Learning ‘First Year’ Environment” “Developing Academically Enriched Studies” A program of the Center for Mentoring and Learning, the Institute on Mentoring, Teaching & Learning provides time, support and opportunities for input and collaboration to mentors pursuing projects that further their development and enhance their mentoring and teaching practice. College librarians, educational technologists and instructional designers support the participants during the summer residency and throughout the year. Sara Hull is on the Planning Committee for the Institute. The three IMTL projects described below have invited collaboration with the library with the goal of improving student success. An associate dean and two academic support specialists designed studies with academic skill- building content built in to enhance students’ preparation for academic work. The library identified content designed to support faculty members’ understanding and use of scaffolded assignments, flipped classrooms, and academic skill building such as critical thinking, critical reading, and critical writing. Faculty volunteers who agreed to include these methods in their course design received content and training in their use from the project members. Those studies are currently underway. Assessment is pending. Several mentors and academic support specialists designed an open, online community space intended to help our nontraditionally-aged ‘first year’ students refine and re-engage with forgotten academic skills. The library identified content on reading comprehension, critical writing, time management, information literacy and digital literacy to be added to the space. When complete, members of this learning community will have the option of earning badges in specific content areas by participating in interactive learning experiences. Two mentors developed a residency designed to help new distance learning students foster a connection to the college and the sense of membership in a cohort otherwise missing from the distance learning experience. A librarian will attend the residency to introduce library resources and information literacy concepts as well as to answer student questions and encourage future use of the library and contact with college librarians. These mentors will follow the students throughout their Empire State College experience to assist with educational planning and provision of appropriate academic supports. References Other Library Initiatives to Improve Student Success Numerous studies 1 have attempted to address the challenge of providing empirical evidence demonstrating positive correlations between student use of academic library resources and services and student success and retention. Finding this evidence can be challenging in a culture that deliberately attempts to protect patron privacy. Some studies have attempted to make the connection by looking at student retention from one term to the next in light of book-borrowing habits, attendance at library instructional sessions, and the student’s relationship to a physical library. An even greater challenge is presented when student library usage occurs exclusively at a distance, opportunities to engage with a librarian F2F are rare, and when those students are not tied to a traditional 4-year program. Under those circumstances, the Empire State College Online Library is considering the following potentially measurable points of contact with the library: authentication to library subscription services registered attendance at library instructional webinars engagement with library resources linked or embedded in the LMS engagement with the targeted IMTL projects (at left) requirement to complete our Research Skills Tutorial (  Better alignment with student services around the college, such as the academic support specialists, coaches and tutors, to weave an ‘academic safety net.’  Identify a proven instrument with which to consistently assess incoming students’ information literacy baseline, with the intent to direct students to appropriate academic supports, as needed.  Create opportunities to interact with students on a F2F basis, whether at student residencies or new student orientations. Librarians are nice! Crawford, G. (2015). The academic library and student retention and graduation: An exploratory study. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 15(1), Retrieved from Haddow, G. (2013). Academic library use and student retention: A quantitative analysis. Library & Information Science Research, 35, doi: /j.lisr Haddow, G., & Joseph, J. (2010). Loans, logins, and lasting the course: Academic library use and student retention. Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 41(4), Retrieved from Mezick, E. (2007). Return on investment: Libraries and student retention. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 33(5), Retrieved from academic-librarianship/ Mezick, E. (2015). Relationship of library assessment to student retention. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 41, doi: /j.acalib Needham, G., Nurse, R., Parker, J., Scantlebury, N., & Dick, S. (2013) Can an excellent distance learning library service support student retention and how can we find out? Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 28(2), doi: / Pagowsky, N. & Hammond, J. (2012). A programmatic approach: Systematically tying the library to student retention efforts on campus. C&RL News, 73(10), Retrieved from Soria, K., Fransen, J., & Nackerud, S. (2014). Stacks, serials, search engines, and students' success: First-year undergraduate students' library use, academic achievement, and retention. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 40. doi: j.acalib