"Joining forces" with student bodies - a sharing on collaborative experiences in NTU Libraries
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This document discusses collaborating between university libraries and student bodies at NTU in Singapore. It provides examples of different types of collaborative events, exhibitions, and campaigns conducted by NTU Libraries with student groups to build relationships, increase awareness of library services, and understand student perspectives. These include welcome week events, orientation activities, academic publishing sessions, poetry readings, Chinese New Year and art exhibitions, anti-seating hogging campaigns, and promoting 24/7 library access. Tips are provided on creating mutually beneficial partnerships, being flexible, showing appreciation, and ongoing communication.
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"Joining forces" with student bodies - a sharing on collaborative experiences in NTU Libraries
- 1. “Joining forces” with student bodies A SHARING ON COLLABORATIVE EXPERIENCES IN NTU LIBRARIES • • • • • • V Somasundram Librarian (Library Promotion)/Art Librarian (Media Arts) NTU Libraries Presented on 13 January 2015 in Singapore Polytechnic Library
- 2. S T U D E N T L I F E I N N T U
- 4. WHY COLLABORATE ? Build relationships Increase awareness of the Library Get to know their perspective of the Library
- 5. S T U D E N T B O D I E S I N N T U
- 6. TYPES OF COLLABORATION EVENTS EXHIBITIONS CAMPAIGNS
- 7. EVENTS W E L C O M E W E E K
- 8. EVENTS O R I E N T A T I O N A C T I V I T I E S
- 9. EVENTS O R I E N T A T I O N A C T I V I T I E S
- 10. EVENTS O R I E N T A T I O N A C T I V I T I E S
- 11. EVENTS O R I E N T A T I O N A C T I V I T I E S
- 12. EVENTS O R I E N T A T I O N A C T I V I T I E S
- 13. EVENTS A C A D E M I C P U B L I S H I N G
- 14. EVENTS C O U R S E P R E S E N T A T I O N S
- 16. EVENTS P O E T R Y R E A D I N G
- 17. EVENTS P O E T R Y R E A D I N G
- 18. EXHIBITIONS C H I N E S E N E W Y E A R
- 19. EXHIBITIONS U N S E E N B E A U T Y
- 20. EXHIBITIONS K I Z U N A P R O J E C T
- 21. CAMPAIGNS D O U B L E S I D E D P R I N T I N G
- 22. CAMPAIGNS A N T I - S E A T H O G G I N G C A M P A I G N
- 23. CAMPAIGNS ANTI-SEAT HOGGING CAMPAIGN
- 24. CAMPAIGNS A N T I - S E A T H O G G I N G C A M P A I G N Reading Rooms Libraries
- 25. CAMPAIGNS ANTI-SEAT HOGGING CAMPAIGN
- 26. CAMPAIGNS ANTI-SEAT HOGGING CAMPAIGN
- 27. CAMPAIGNS U - S T U D Y C A M P A I G N
- 28. CAMPAIGNS U - S T U D Y C A M P A I G N
- 29. TIPS ON WORKING WITH STUDENT BODIES Create a win-win situation Be willing to take risks & be flexible Thank them and share the outcomes Keep in touch and stay up to date of their activities and events
- 30. Questions?
- 31. Thank you!
Editor's Notes
- NTU students form the majority of users Undergraduates & postgraduates NTU Libraries have been working with them for the past few years on projects which benefits both the Library and them which I will share today will also share on why we collaborate and some tips on collaborating with students and also what didn’t work Before that look at why we collaborate with students
- NTU emphasises on student life where Students are encouraged to get involved by joining clubs and societies, and organizing events & activities hope to give the students the opportunity to learn to live and work in an multicultural environment and making the most out of their university life. An Associate Provost for Student Life, Assoc Prof Kwok Kian Woon who works very closely with students to get their views and voices. Last week, a Director of Student Community Engagement (Ms Christie Lee) was appointed take the lead overall to oversee and work with the various stakeholders in NTU to aggregate a wide range of sustained and impactful student community engagement programmes and projects. So how does NTU Libraries play a part in NTU’s student life?
- By collaborating with the students, particularly student bodies! We work together with them towards shared goals, benefitting the students and the Library as well. Through collaborative projects, we hope to provide them experience of working beyond their peers and develop themselves holistically. Working with students can be beneficial for libraries also How?
- Increase awareness – besides the library, the resources, services, staff and so on. This provides a good opportunity for them to know us and we know them In the long run, we tend to build relationships with them and they tend to be more comfortable with the librarians. Comfort zone While working with them, we also get to know their perspective of the Library and what they want out of it. One example – unawareness of personal subject librarian
- Over 70 student bodies in NTU consists of NTU Students’ Union, NTU Graduate Students Council Includes Clubs & societies which are academic, arts & cultural, religious and special interests. Most are quite active organising events, running projects and so on. These are the student bodies that we have worked with so far or currently working with. I will share on our collaborations with them
- Mainly there are three types of collaborations: Events, exhibitions, campaigns
- Annual welcome week – organised by NTUSU & held during Week 1 of the first semester Kind of like CCA Day – student clubs and societies are invited to set up booths to recruit freshmen First we started off by asking for booth, but eventually, students approach us for Library to set up the booth We use the booth to attract freshmen through fun activities like paper plane flying, football, video & photo booth where they stand to walk away with free giveaways promote our other orientation activities (freshmen workshops & party at the libraries) My Ideal Library Problems encountered: Date changed and was not communicated Change of committee every year; inexperienced (logistics) Always good to get their mobile numbers
- Another orientation activity A different committee Tried to mend the activity in the preferred manner and we let them
- Pieces of clues were hidden in the library and they had to find these pieces (in between books) together to get a complete picture. To make it more fun, we get them to do a selfie with us after the complete the treasure hunt. Observations: Saw how the students search for library things. We are always worrying that “searching a book” is too difficult for students but actually they all know how to do it without us “helping” them much. There are some hits and misses but they discover it very quickly and manage it quite fun
- Similarly with NTU Graduate Student Council Less running about and more interaction with the libraries
- High Tea – another orientation activity by NTUGSC which is a welcome sessions for new graduate students talks by the different office, concerts, film screening, tea Library was given a 10-minute slot & they invited us to join for the high tea -new grad students interacted with the librarians
- Following the high tea, we gathered interested graduate students for library tours This was a very good opportunity for graduate students as they need the library resources to do the research And they appreciate that we were present – microphone story Got to know the GSC better which led to more collaborations such as…[Next slide]
- Started off in 2012 and which is a month long on talks about publishing which is very important for researchers and new academics We noticed that more PhD students attended the talks Invited GSC for ideas even before we even got the speakers GSC recommended some of the speakers and one them is having individual talks by well-experienced supervising faculty to share their publishing stories As there are various disciplines and a bit odd with just on faculty – we’ll be doing a panel discussion One of NTU GSC member even volunteered herself to give a talk – this gives a sense of ownership that the talks are organized for them.
- Course presentation in BUSL by Nanyang Entrepreneurship Centre By students in Minor in Entrepreneurship programme They used to hold their class presentation on business ideas back at their centre where there is low traffic Set up businesses stalls in the library such as cake shops, marketing & consultancy services, bags, F& B And they shared their observations and lessons learnt during the presentation It was a very good event with high turnout compared to previous years, Lecturers were happy
- Our English literature librarian worked with Professor Koh Tai Ann from HASS on a digital project by compiling an annotated bibliography of Singapore Literature in English, part of NTU Digital Projects The initial idea was to just launch it but the librarian wanted to have students involved to get the crowd and so she approached Epiphany (ɪˈpɪf(ə)ni,ɛ-/) (NTU English & Drama Society) to conduct their usual open mike session for poetry reading in the Library And combine both events
- Had an event called Night at HSS Library Like the idea of night at Library as students were able to attend after classes. Also invited three other professors who taught creative writing, who also got their students to recite poems. Mutual benefits: Gained publicity for Sing lit Biblio Requests for more poetry reading events Working closely with the creative writing team now for an upcoming blog Library has more openings for exhibitions: Library also put up a physical display of students’ poetry for the event – the school then invited us to move it to the HSS school for an exhibition on creativity for a psychology symposium. The connections made with Epiphany are very useful in keeping us in touch with students what events they like to have, how they use the library for their studies etc… HSSL now perceived as a cool place to hold events –had another poetry reading since (Jeffrey Wainwright) and another night at the library this month (Jan 22)
- Had an event called Night at HSS Library Like the idea of night at Library as students were able to attend after classes. Also invited three other professors who taught creative writing, who also got their students to recite poems. Mutual benefits: Gained publicity for Sing lit Biblio Requests for more poetry reading events Working closely with the creative writing team now for an upcoming blog Library has more openings for exhibitions: Library also put up a physical display of students’ poetry for the event – the school then invited us to move it to the HSS school for an exhibition on creativity for a psychology symposium. The connections made with Epiphany are very useful in keeping us in touch with students what events they like to have, how they use the library for their studies etc… HSSL now perceived as a cool place to hold events –had another poetry reading since (Jeffrey Wainwright) and another night at the library this month (Jan 22)
- Library spaces are very useful for students to display their work. With traffic & much conducive environment, exhibitions in library tend to attract curious eyes to the exhibits and giving exposure to the works Meanwhile, we also try to display library resources related to the theme of the exhibition, Particularly books, by bring the related books out from the shelves and ëxpose” as well Annual exhibition done by NTU Chinese Society
- NTU Photo-Videographic Society. Continuous collaboration with the library. Doing again in Feb 2015 Popular exhibitions are Unseen Beauty (photos around NTU) & Unsung heroes (photos of staff working in background, including library staff)
- Japanese Appreciation Society
- Sometimes there may be some common problems or platforms to work on for both the student clubs & Library or we just want to convey our wishes and support to students with their exams So the Library taps on the student club or existing campaigns (if any), to do so Previously one-sided printing was the default EarthLink came us to with the idea of making double-sided printing We conveyed to our vendor, Campus Supplies who had to programme their printer software Also helped to promote the double-sided printing
- Seat hogging was a prevalent problem in the Library Students leaving their items for long period of time and depriving others of seats. Received a lot of email complaints to do something or nothing is being done, even though we do patrolling Even bigger problem in NTU reading rooms run by NTU Student Union Open 24 hours and items are left overnight, sometimes many days
- Comics were quite popular (CCO use of comic strips) So with inputs from student Union, we got our student assistant to come up with this comic strip came up To convey the message of anti-seat hogging, instead of just telling them not to seat hog Printed postcards with information about the libraries’ opening hours during the revision & exam period. Given out during the exam welfare campaign – will cover later
- Other schools also asked for these stickers
- And so once this campaign took off, we appeared in the student-run publication…but for good reasons
- Mentioned that Library & Student Union are aware of the problem Mentions of Library & NTUSU taking measures. Library – patrolling & NTUSU – clear the tables everyday Number of complaints went down…
- U-Study campaign where NTUSU-led exam welfare campaign Besides, negotiating with F&B Places and the Library to extend its hours, they have a welfare package giveaway “Share it, give it up”postcards, woven bags (got thrown away), this year wallet tissue (Thank SP Library for it!!) As mentioned NTUSU negotiates with Library to extend the hours…. Usual problem – No security guards, need student assistants, response not great for recruitment unable to get SAs to work during extended hours.
- So we tell them to help publicize the recruitment Response was overwhelming NTUSU benefitted good news for the students as they were agreeable to the students
- Be willing to take risks NTU open House (conducting tours on their own) Thank them and share the outcomes Exhibitions