LBCC had been seeing a downturn in enrollment in previous school years. LBCC President Lisa Avery often recounts a time in the mid-past when the in-person enrollment of the college was so high that people had to park on the grass beyond the college’s parking lots. Covid only did further harm to enrollment and in turn, revenue. With a deficit of more than $2 million looming, budget cuts were an unpleasant necessity.
Fall term of 2023, LBCC has seen a notable uptick in enrollment. The campus is alive again; students are slowly starting to populate the halls, courtyard, classrooms, and even the mostly librarian-less library. Yet behind the scenes, there are still many unknowns and unanswered questions suggesting a disconnect in communication between administration and faculty.
Outwardly, the library is functioning for students with few noticeable differences. The library is offering most of the services it had in years past and is open Monday through Thursday 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Fridays from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The library is also open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays.
As for instructors, the library is able to accommodate most requests. Online resources created in past years should still be available, and ordering can be accomplished by reaching out directly to Library and Learning Center Director Samantha Hines. For a reason unrelated to the budget cuts, interlibrary loan requests are also to go through Hines for the time being.
Faculty instructors last spring were concerned about where students would now go for help and mentorship when working on research, a crucial duty carried out by the former faculty librarians. Some suggest that research librarian-specific information will be hard to come by in light of the lack of faculty librarians.
“I do notice students internalizing the feeling that they're simply ‘not good at research’ when previously they would have received extra support from librarians who could help them gain skills and confidence. It's like the difference between a student getting tutoring in a difficult class and a student going it alone,” said English faculty Karelia Stetz-Waters.
Others were concerned with the ability of the college to continue producing resources for Spanish-speaking students. The faculty librarians had taken on the task of providing bilingual services for equitable access to educational materials.
Student Help Desk technician Jaden Christoson said, “We lost three or four of our bilingual library staff.” Later, Hines confirmed that there are actually no Spanish-speaking bilingual staff currently working in the library.
To the trained eye, changes have been noticeable. Hines gives praise to the current staff while also noting that from the inside of the library, they are feeling the strain after the loss of former colleagues Richenda Hawkins, Bryan Miyagishima, and Douglas Hambley, who had created an infrastructure and countless resources the library is still relying on.
As of December 14th 2023, the Faculty Association and College Administration have reached a mutually agreeable resolution to help nullify the grievances of losing three faculty librarians. The agreement was to restore a full-time faculty librarian, Scott Gallagher-Starr who will start January 1st of 2024. Richenda Hawkins and Bryan Miyagishima have waived their rights to be recalled to that position, and all parties support the confidential settlement.
The former faculty librarians’ reach stretched past the confines of the library walls. The librarians were key in assisting instructors develop and maintain web resources for their classrooms, teaching students about information literacy, and assisting students in their research. With the faculty librarians gone in an age where it is easier than ever to find false or misleading information, it begs the question, how are LBCC students getting the information they need to find and identify correct and reliable information sources?
“I’d go to Wikipedia and use article reference links as research resources,” said mechanical engineering student Ben Canterero. “I can’t think of a place to go on campus for help.”
While there is not currently someone equipped to visit classrooms or help instructors maintain their web resources for their classes, students can visit Richard Kearney, part-time research assistant at the Albany campus on Mondays and Saturdays, and at the Healthcare Occupations Center in Lebanon on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“My location in Albany is at the Reference Desk on the first floor of the Main Library across from the Circulation Desk and in front of the Writing Center (you can't miss it). My location at the HOC is in the HOC Library on the first floor straight ahead as you enter the building,” Kearney wrote in an email.
Kearney encourages students to drop in or make an appointment for his assistance. However, Kearney notes that few students are requesting his help and he is seeing only one or two students per week at the main library along with a modest handful of emails and chats.
While a reference assistant is an effort to provide help, based on the traffic, students seem unaware of this service.
An elementary education student said they’d go ask the First Resort about how to get help, and several other students mentioned they’d try the Learning Center.
A part-time reference assistant bridges some of the gap between students and the college. The librarians’ work in visiting classrooms was a welcoming and warming touch to the institution, inviting students out of the classroom and into the library.
“The relationships that the visiting librarians created with my students helped my students get comfortable with the idea of reaching out for help with their research and helped them build the confidence they needed to complete their classes and persist as students at the college,” said English faculty Chris Riseley.
“I've had to readjust many of my materials in the absence of librarians so that my students can continue to encounter the high-quality materials that the librarians used to help them find. The real pity here is that my students have lost the personal connections with the college that the librarians provided,” said Riseley.
Locally, students looking for reliable resources can visit the library’s website for books, articles, streaming videos, research tools, featured resources, and online magazines.
“OSU does provide borrowing privileges for community members,” said Stetz-Waters, though she worries that some LBCC students may not feel comfortable asking for research help at OSU’s library.
“I have no idea who I’d ask for research help at LBCC,” said LBCC/OSU dual-enrolled animal science student Jen Lindeman. “I’d probably use OSU’s database.”
LBCC students can also use an online librarian chat service.
When using this service, accessors are asked to provide a question and then connected with a librarian somewhere else in the world. Within minutes a real person, and qualified librarian, is linked into the chat.
For the research of this article, I was linked to a librarian in Philadelphia who confirmed that completion of graduate school was required to qualify to work for this service.
At this point in the school year, it is hard to have exact numbers related to traffic in the library. Hines speculates that the amount of student traffic in the library is similar to last school year, though the library still isn’t as busy as school years before COVID-19.
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