13 SPEC Kit 361: Outreach and Engagement 1. Please briefly describe how outreach is defined at your library. N=55 Activities we undertake to promote library services, resources, and programs to internal and external stakeholders with an emphasis on creating awareness among faculty and students through liaison relationships. As a land grant institution, outreach promotes library services to the campus community and users across the state. At this time, there is no single definition of outreach that covers all 12 libraries that span three separate campuses and fall under three separate administrative entities. Collaborating with campus and community partners to promote library services, support underserved populations, provide access to our collections to a broader audience, and advance our land grant mission. Concerted efforts are made to identify focused user populations at the university, whether it be a specific college, academic department, or program. Designated subject specialist and service-focused librarians serve as liaisons to these populations and provide research consultations, classes, programs, and targeted research support. Creating moments of discovery, learning, and exchange with the university community (students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, friends) and the broader public through the library’s people, services, collections, and access. Each of our major campus libraries defines outreach activities that are appropriate for their clientele. We do not have one overall definition. Efforts to connect with specific population of students, staff, faculty, or community members as a means of engaging with our services and collections, as well as providing opportunities for dialogue within and between these populations. Engagement Engagement with both university and external communities that is not classroom based. For the purpose of responding to your survey, we are defining outreach as activities that connect with our core constituents—faculty, staff, students, alumni, and the public—to provide awareness of our services, collections, spaces, technologies, etc. and to provide these populations with information, training, and knowledge to help them with their research, teaching, and learning goals. We are not including the activities we do with donors and alumni that are more specifically focused on cultivating relationships for fundraising, development, and stewardship. Internally and externally focused activities to encourage current and prospective students to come to the library and feel welcomed and supported there. Librarian outreach is primarily directed at university students, faculty, researchers, staff, and affiliates. Marketing the library’s services and collections to faculty, students to support teaching and research, student learning and success. Outreach is also partnering with campus departments to collaborate on events, programs, and activities to promote the services and collections of the library. Examples include orientations, game nights, tours, end of semester events, resource tables, and events. Our campus defines outreach as purposeful engagement with campus (internal) and external constituencies, in the form of services, programs, tailored support, and partnerships. Our definition encompasses both services to campus and outside communities with the goal of engaging people with our programs, services, and spaces. Our definition of outreach includes promoting library services to both university and outside constituents. These include faculty, staff, students, schools and colleges, departments, and other units on
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