Planning Academic Library Orientations

Colleges and universities throughout the world plan library orientations for first years or specific audiences such as transfer or international students. These events can vary greatly in shape and form depending on the size, resources and staff of the institution, orientation schedule, and whether it is mandatory for students. Some institutions plan day-long events, elaborate games, or scavenger hunts; some offer drop in sessions or library tours; others offer an online orientation. Planning Academic Library Orientations gathers case studies from around the world covering a wide variety of approaches as a guide to those revamping or creating new library orientations.

Chapters are organized into the following thematic sections: Games; Marketing & Promotion; Partnerships; Targeting Specific Audiences; Technology; and Tours, and are cross-referenced if they touch on additional themes. Each chapter includes institutional information so readers can decide which type of orientation is appropriate for their own institution and see what resources are required.

• Gives guidance on best practices for academic library orientations
• Gathers examples from around the world to provide international perspective
• Empowers librarians to take aim at the anxiety felt by new and first year students
• Presents effective ways of introducing students to what a college/university library is, what it contains, and where to find information, while also showing how helpful librarians can be

Academic librarians, librarians charged with planning first year orientations, library leaders, graduate students and researchers in LIS

Games
1. Hole in One: Library Services on the Green
2. Passing Go: Utilizing Gamification to Introduce New Students to the Libraries
3. Breakout the Library: Using Escape Room Concepts to Teach and Assess the First Year Library Orientation Experience
4. New tactics for orientation: using gamification to connect and engage students
5. Play Day at UTS library: engaging students with fun and serious play
6. Orientation as Exploration: Video Game Training Modules as a Model for Learning by Discovery
7. Connecting New Freshmen with the Library: People, Places & Problem Solving

Marketing & Promotion
8. Supporting student retention and success: Personal Librarian Program at the University of Victoria
9. Welcome to the Library: Building a Social Orientation Campaign
10. Building Community through Festival: Library Orientation on the Quad

Partnerships
11. Collaboration on a Grand Scale: Creating a high-impact educational orientation experience through campus and library partnerships
12. Building Partnerships for Better Library Orientations
13. Teaching library and legal research skills to first year law students: the role of library tours and exercises
14. The Big Red Ruckus @ Love – From Co-operation to Collaboration

Targeting Specific Audiences
15. Library Orientations for Resident Assistants
16. Marhaba, Welcome: Orienting International Students to the Academic Library
17. Passport to Discovery: A Library Adventure
18. Designing a library orientation for first year students with disabilities through the STEPS program
19. Self-Designed Orientations by International Graduate Students
20. “The library is very huge and beautiful”: A Library Orientation for English Language Learners
21. Be All That You Can Be: Targeting Library Orientations to Student Cadets
22. Introducing New International Students to Privilege in Information Access

Technology
23. Creating a Library Orientation Video for Distance, Regional and Online Students
24. Creating and Sustaining Library Video Tours
25. Coming to a Screen Near You: Broadcasting Library Orientations
26. Interactive eLearning: Designing the Immersive Course-Integrated Online Library Orientation

Tours
27. Adding Addie To The Library Orientation Programme For Freshmen At Singapore Management University Libraries
28. The Evolution of EKU Libraries Orientations: Giving Students a LibStart to Student Success through Library Engagement
29. #FreshStart: Library Orientation @A Caribbean Academic Library
30. Hunger to Change the Game: Using Assessment to Continually Evolve a Library Orientation
31. 200 students in 20 minutes: Freshman Orientation Tours
32. Passport to Academic Success: An Engaging, Active-Learning Library Orientation for New Students
33. Library Boot Camp: Scalable Basic Training for New Library Users
34. Pecha Kucha It: Everything you need to know about the library in six minutes and forty seconds