Rebranding the Library Through Engineering Outreach: Three Case Studies at the University of Waterloo
- Conference
- Location
-
Portland, Oregon
- Publication Date
-
June 23, 2024
- Start Date
-
June 23, 2024
- End Date
-
July 12, 2024
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
-
Engineering Libraries Division (ELD)
- Permanent URL
-
https://peer.asee.org/47922
Paper Authors
Ryan Ball
University of Waterloo
orcid.org/0009-0006-0459-7563
Ryan (he/him) is a Science & Engineering librarian at the University of Waterloo. Engineering subject specialties include: Architectural, Civil, Environmental, Electrical, Computer, Geological, Mechanical, and Mechatronics.
Supporting the success of engineering students through facilitating the development of information literacy skills, and advocating for accessibility are core aspects of Ryan’s work.
Rachel Figueiredo University of Waterloo
Rachel Figueiredo has been the Engineering & Entrepreneurship Librarian at the University of Waterloo since 2014. In partnership with faculty and students, Rachel helps demystify the research process, from finding information to disseminating results. Rachel has a keen interest in how libraries can reshape their services to best suit researcher's evolving needs in the world of information overload. To this end, Rachel's own research largely focuses on understanding the impacts of various library supports. She has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Library and Information Science from Western University.
Kate Mercer
University of Waterloo
orcid.org/0000-0001-6958-3396
Kate Mercer is an engineering liaison librarian, and an adjunct and sessional instructor for Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Kate's main duties include designing and developing events and programs to better include stakeholders in engineering spaces, as well as providing instruction and research services to students, faculty and staff. Kate's research focuses are in how information gets shared amongst different populations, as well as engineering pedagogical research around stakeholder inclusion and empathy in engineering.
Abstract
In 2023, with a full return to in-person learning post-Covid-19 lockdowns, Engineering Librarians at the University of Waterloo seized opportunities to explore new programming and partnerships. This paper presents three case studies of collaborations involving librarians from four different departments within the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo, as well as a brief examination of key takeaways, lessons learned, and future potential. While each of these cases details a collaboration with a different department, this paper will outline how the impetus behind and the outcomes stemming from these collaborations are related: Waterloo’s engineering librarians are dedicated to rebranding the Library as a key element to academic success.
The collaborations include a semester-long co-curricular program, the strategic inclusion of library services into wellness programming, and an interactive multi-part stakeholder workshop. The focus of the collaborations included experiential learning, project-based learning, and wellness, and all collaborations involved librarians joining with external groups and stakeholders to broaden impact. In each of the three cases, the initial ask was not for information literacy (IL) instruction – or even for librarian support – but by identifying a point-of-need and having conversations with campus colleagues, librarians have made themselves a fundamental part of interesting partnerships. These experiences demonstrated how librarians are ideal collaborators, and partnerships are more engaging when they combine personal and professional areas of expertise. While IL was not the aim for any of these collaborations, they all became a natural fit to integrate IL skills, and have three consistent themes throughout: 1) Fostering Relationships over time, 2) Building a culture of trust, 3) Saying yes, each of which can be continue to be used when launching new interesting initiatives and projects.
Ball, R., & Figueiredo, R., & Mercer, K. (2024, June), Rebranding the Library Through Engineering Outreach: Three Case Studies at the University of Waterloo Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/47922
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2024 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015