Fall 2021 CRD Virtual Journal Club

This Fall semester, the College & Research Division is hosting a virtual journal club, which typically meets online three times to discuss scholarship in the library science field. The CRD Journal Club was originally established in Summer 2018, and typically runs in the summer, spring, and fall of each year. The theme for the Fall 2021 semester is outreach to new students.

So far, the group has held two sessions discussing articles relating to outreach. The first article discussed was “Personal connections: One library’s history of personal librarian” by Elise Ferer, published in Reference Services Review. Participants discussed the personal librarian program as outlined in the article, focusing on communication strategies with students such as utilizing marketing platforms for sending emails and individual outreach vs. mass emails from a shared account.

For the second session, the participants read two articles: “Applying gamification to the library orientation: A study of interactive user experience and engagement preferences,” by Karen Nourse Reed and A Miller, published in Information Technology and Libraries, and “Creating a choose-your-own-adventure library orientation: The process of using a text-based, interactive storytelling tool to take your orientation virtual,” by Amber Sewell, published in the Journal of New Librarianship. This discussion often compared the styles of the two articles, with one being a more traditional research study and the other providing a first-person perspective, while also discussing the variety of orientation options (ex. in-person vs. virtual, standard vs. customized for audience). 

The CRD Journal Club will host its final session for Fall 2021 on Thursday, December 17th from 2:00-3:00 pm. We will be discussing the article “Virtually (im)possible: Transitioning to a virtual marketing and outreach program,” by Laura Wilson, Corinne Gabriele, Alex McConnon, Susan Skoog, Nicole Tantum, and Lisa Villa, published in Marketing Libraries Journal. Email us at crdvirtualjournalclub@gmail.com if you’re interested in joining!