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Terra Jacobson and Spencer Brayton, "Valuing the Community College Library: Impactful Practices for Institutional Success" (ACRL, 2025)
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- [00:00]
A
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- [01:07]
B
Welcome to the new Books in Library Science podcast channel on the New Books Network. I'm your host, Michael lamagna. Higher education as a whole is facing a number of challenges, such as enrollment declines due to the demographic cliff, funding reductions at the federal and state levels, and demonstrating its value at a time when parents and even students question the return on the investment of this education. Libraries have always seen themselves as the heart of the campus, but this isn't the case anymore. And even more true for community college, with the challenges facing higher education in general, this is a time when community college libraries need to effectively communicate their value. Joining me to discuss Valuing the Community College Impactful Practices for Institutional Success, published in 2025 by ACRL, are the editors. Tara Jacobson is the Dean of the Learning Resource center at Moran Valley Community College. And Spencer Brayton is the Director of Library Services at Waubonsie Community College. Welcome to the podcast, Tara and Spencer.
- [02:12]
C
Thanks for having us. Michael. Hi. So this is Spencer. I have a. I got my MLIs from UW Madison, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and I'm currently pursuing a doctorate in higher education. I think what really made me focus on academic librarianship is I was towards the end of my bachelor's degree and figuring out maybe what I wanted to do next and always Interested in history and potentially pursuing a PhD in history. And then sort of scanning the job market and talking to some of my instructors at the time. Um, I thought I'd pivot a bit. Um, and so I started working in our college's archives. And so that kind of led me on a trajectory to get into academic libraries.
- [03:01]
D
Yeah, this is Tara, and thanks for having us today. I am really excited to share a little bit about the book and a little bit more about me. I've been working in community college libraries for 17 years about now. Been at Moraine Valley for 15 years, and sounds just like Spencer a little bit. Maybe we're like copycats. I also was a history major who is pursuing some history education degrees. Ended up getting a job at the Swedish archives at my college as a cataloging assistant and got interested in libraries, working in libraries that way. So I got my MLS and mis, both dual degrees at Indiana University, focusing actually in academic library at that time, something I knew I kind of wanted to move into. And also social informatics and human computer interaction as the other side of that, kind of left that behind and recently went back after going to work in community college libraries for about 14 years to get my PhD from Dominican University, where I probably could say I now also adjunct and teach there. So it's really a fun journey. Really enjoyed that. And I studied in that program the Value of ELT Community College Libraries and the ELT Perspective. So Executive Leadership Team Perspectives on Community College Library Value. And so that was my. My big project. You know, those big dissertations that everyone writes that sometimes we don't read, but it's fun to work on.
- [04:29]
B
So what first sparked your interest in examining the value of community college libraries?
- [04:36]
D
I'll start off with this one, I think. I think Spencer and I met actually working with community college libraries in a consortia in Illinois called the Network of Illinois Learning Resources in Community Colleges. And we had met, I think, at a conference, one of the conferences just started to talk about some of same things we were seeing in our libraries and from our peers across the state. There's, I think, 40. I think it's 47, 43 to 47, depending how you count the systems community colleges in the state. And so a lot of those librarians are there. We're hearing their perspectives, we're seeing what's going on. And we kept hearing some of the same themes, I think, come back, right. And. And that started to help us, like, dig in and talk about where things were going with our libraries, what value looked like the. The struggles we were having, communicating with our administration on about what we do, how we impact our colleges, the work we're doing. So I think that's really kind of how this kind of got going for us. I'll. Spencer, kind of share his perspective too, on how that worked.
- [05:34]
C
Yeah, I mean, the, this whole idea was Tara's to start with. So I have to give her. Give her that. I think too. What we also saw at the time when we first started putting the proposal together for ACRL is we were both and continue to be involved with cjcls. So not only locally and sort of regionally, I guess, but also nationally, some of the same themes and, and also the. And I think we'll probably get to this in some other questions, but that, that gap in the, the literature where our community college libraries. We're not, you know, we don't necessarily need to write or publish or do these things. And often we don't have the time to, you know, we have, we observe. You know, I think both of us too, and we're in some of these meetings with. For CJCLs and people are chairing the committee, but they're also on the reference desk when they're convenient, you know. So that's sort of, I think that's sort of the essence of community college librarian. Librarianship a little bit is doing a couple things at the same time. But then how do we assert our value and document what we're doing and tell that story?
- [06:42]
D
Yeah. And we saw our peers, I think, get structured so thin. Right. And doing that work and wanting to do such a good job. There were some studies that ACRL had done too, looking at community colleges and, and how they're providing value and service to us as an organization. And that also kind of helped form, I think, that original team that CJCLS hosted on scholarly research and trying to promote scholarly research. And again, we don't have those, I think, external motivators that help us do research. Right. Sometimes there's not a faculty tenure process at your community college, depending on where you're at and how you're sitting system is structured. We don't have things that help us with promotion in that way. There's no push to publish. Right. There's no requirement to publish often because we're teaching institutions, which is wonderful. It's a great thing that we get to do. But that does also keeps us from getting the word out about the work we're doing, from sharing with each other. And so that's kind of what motivated where we went with this book is getting those people together, sharing those stories that kind of get lost or that we maybe heard about but hadn't actually gotten to document and get shared in a broader platform.
- [07:43]
B
So as an edited volume, what was your editorial vision for the book and how did you determine what perspectives and contributions to include?
- [07:52]
D
This was super intentional for us. Right. We, when we put together the proposal with acrl, Spencer and I really talked about making sure that we pull in people that wouldn't get the chance to write or might be nervous about writing, haven't written in an academic setting before. And so we wanted to make sure we were bringing voice to those voices. We wanted to share those stories and making it very approachable for folks. And so I give credit to Spencer, I think came up with a lot of the process on that and how we should approach this with working with everyone. So do you want to talk about that?
- [08:26]
C
Yeah, we, we wanted to create space for. Yeah. For first time authors. We wanted to make the book accessible because we thought if there's a gap in the literature with this, this type of publication, how are we going to get folks to feel comfortable and supported to work on a project? And so we wanted to offer support and guidance to first time authors and how they navigate the process. And so I think we offered that whether they wanted to meet with the both of us or we also offered and scheduled at the beginning of the process, once we had the chapters lined up like almost like writing support meetings where folks could kind of talk through what they're doing and bounce ideas off of other authors about the writing process, about their concepts and about what they're doing just to kind of get comfortable with that process. And we, we offered that support then individually along the way as needed. So that was an important component for us.
- [09:23]
D
Yeah. And I think as we structure that and we put the, we've kind of developed a webpage just sharing like that. We are looking for this type of author encouraging that. But we also left them with some ideas and some perspectives and some things to kind of give them ju jumping off points. Right. So we shared some suggestions about things that were going on in the field, some broad topics to get people kind of thinking about things. Because I think what we did do with a lot of the authors is sometimes they started with a very big topic or idea that they were just really interested in and then we worked with them to help them kind of bring that down to something more manageable, something that they could work on maybe more locally. And so that process helped us I think give folks that chance to write where they might have said, no, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna do this, or maybe I haven't done this. I don't have enough time. I'm sharing that time at the reference desk. I'm also teaching this class. I'm doing collection development. And there's only two of us in our library. I can't do it. And I think there's some people that. That got to that point and it was very difficult to get that work done. I totally understand because a lot of our institutions are being staffed with, you know, two, three librarians, if we're lucky. And so everyone has to make time for what works for them. But we tried to make it as accommodating as possible to work with those schedules. I think we made some longer dead, lots of individual feedback sessions. And so we wanted it to be really representative of the peers that we're working with, of the institutions across the country as possible. And I think that opening that process up in that way made it a lot less difficult to get that work done for those authors.
- [10:52]
B
I really love that approach to the book because as you said, oftentimes community college librarians do not need to publish. And so going after those first time authors and providing that support really is key. So how is this book structured and how did the individual chapters kind of come together to advance themes and central arguments?
- [11:13]
C
Well, I'll start with the one that jumps out to me always is, which I think was a challenging one to a certain extent, was starting with the history a little bit. There's not much there. Right. But also an important thing to try and document. So we wanted to make sure that historical lit review, literature review was present to try to form a foundation for the book and to kind of have something again. If we go back to the theme of trying to fill some sort of a gap in the literature to have that history documented to start with.
- [11:50]
D
Yeah. And I think it's an excellent take on looking at what's happened in community colleges. And so, if anything, with the book, I think people should take a look at that to start and just see where we've been. Something working on my dissertation, I couldn't find a comprehensive analysis, and that's something that we saw that hole in. So I'm so happy that we found someone that was interested in doing that work. Samantha Minnis did a wonderful job pulling it all together and made that really possible. And then we really wanted to look at different aspects of where we were in different stages of community colleges because I think a lot of us are in different places, right? We have different goals, objectives. We got to meet the needs of each of our institutions. And so we are at different levels of progress in how academic libraries are working across the country. And so we wanted to really set the kind of like a where. Where we are now. What's our current narratives? What's currently happening in community colleges is some of the stories. What are people doing? What are the current practices, best practices, things that people have tried is more like case studies too, and share those perspectives. And then we also wanted to say, like, where are we going to go? What's going to happen for us? What are the opportunities we see available to community college libraries to also demonstrate our value? So we're talking about the value we're demonstrating now and the things that we want to do in the future to demonstrate that. And then we also really wanted to look at getting some of our peers. And I want Spencer to share about this because we got some peers and some other folks that are not librarians to give us those stories too.
- [13:16]
C
Yeah, we really wanted maybe other executive leaders or faculty to really share their story about the value of community college libraries in terms of their experience. So it was great to get a couple community college presidents to talk about the value of community college libraries, as well as one faculty member who I had connected with earlier on in my career where we co taught and did a bunch of work in the area of media literacy. So talking about connecting and collaborating with your library and the value in that, I think too, if I could just go back quick to, you know, Tara talking about the. The sort of the current issues and existing narratives. I think one, like she said, we're all in different spaces and. But two, I think in, in terms of different institutions and size wise and we talk a lot about, about value and, and innovation and those things also in higher education. And those things will also look different at different institutions. And I think it's. It's sort of surveying the landscape in terms of what's going on right now and also celebrating that work because it is different in different spaces.
- [14:29]
A
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- [15:00]
B
Well, I'm glad that you brought that up. So what are some of those pressing challenges facing community college libraries right now? And where do you see some of those opportunities for innovation and growth?
- [15:13]
D
Yeah, I think you alluded to this in earlier, kind of introducing our episode too, right. Is this big funding and enrollment cliff that we're all hitting. I think that's the hot topic on our campus currently across the state, across the nation. And it's impacting libraries. Right. We're. We're cost centers for campuses. Right. Or that's how maybe our administration sees us. And we don't often offer like a really good way to demonstrate dollars in and dollars out. Right. So it's money coming in equals what kind of value going out for our students we can do, you know, you know, we do like those same things that maybe public libraries do. Like you check out this many books, you get this kind of value back. Or we've hosted this many sessions and it costs this much to support these students in this way. Those are things that we can give as metrics. But as colleges look more and more like business models. Right. And kind of structuring in that way that puts libraries at risk, that put us at risk. And so I think that's a big challenge that we're seeing right now.
- [16:14]
B
And so community colleges are there to support, you know, students seeking to earn an associate's degree and transfer to another institution. So what role can the community college library play in supporting student success for those that are looking to transfer?
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C
I think one, one area and actually one chapter that I think about is caring for caregivers. Chapter 17 by Laura Smith. In terms of talking about supporting student parents. So if we, if you want to transfer and you're starting out here, how are, how are we creating spaces where that will allow you to engage with the resources that you need and the staff expertise to be successful at community college? But then if you intend to transfer as well, as well as making, helping, helping a student that way get started with their research and making the space accessible and welcoming to that. So that ensures that they feel comfortable moving on to a four year institution and feeling comfortable again getting their questions answered and feeling supported by their library?
- [17:22]
D
Yeah, and I'd add on to that. I think also we can be really, at least in my campus is how it tends to be. Because we're like a very social hub for our students too. Right. We are a place where students can Come together and spend time. We're not residential campuses generally. There's not many community colleges that are residential campuses. And so being a social and educational hub on our campus I think is a really good way that we can prepare those students for that next step. They need these spaces on our campus to, you know, learn to be students in a new way. And so I think we can kind of do that a little bit for our campuses without that residential aspect. And I think libraries are, and if they aren't, should be this place on our campuses. I think that's the way that we can innovate and move forward. Right. Is that we need to demonstrate that value of that space that's hard to document. But I think it's something that really is something that can help our students be prepared. Especially I think in this post pandemic world. And we're seeing students have experienced school and social situations in very different ways. The library can help foster that growth and that change. And also I think it's, you know, and this really may differ than like our four year partners and what we do, but I think we're a place for like intellectual inquiry. And it's a place that's where it's like supported and a place where students can challenge and like investigate ideas alone or collaboratively. Right. Where there's collaborative spaces that they can meet together. And I think that we can also just in the end again be that third space kind of for students that they just can spend time at. Otherwise they might just go to a Starbucks or coffee shop or maybe we have the coffee shop in the library. But I think that that's really valuable. I think that that's something that's hard to, to share what that value looks like. But I think it's something that is really useful in preparing students for their future.
- [19:10]
C
I was going to add, I think there's a number of chapters that kind of speak to some of the word we're talking about. But there's one about library anxiety. See, I think it's. Yeah, chapter three, Megan Fowler.
- [19:24]
D
Yeah, that's good.
- [19:26]
C
Yeah, it's a good one about, about engaging students in the space in a number of these different ways. You know, at least you know where I'm at. The majority of our students are, are part time, right? And so we talk about that. We talk about first generation students different. You know, you're coming back to the workforce. So how are we, how are we being. It's almost like you're trying to be everything to everybody. Sort of a microcosm of the institution in our, in our own world. And so it, it talks about breaking that down a little bit and how, you know, research, you know, she, she talks about research supporting increased library engagement amongst community college students, boosting GPA and retention. So, so yeah, I think there's a number of chapters that, that get at that, that get around that. But she specifically talks about that anxiety piece which I think is relevant here.
- [20:18]
B
Oh, absolutely. And I, I really enjoyed that, is that the library has space for students to come together because if we think about it, community college student populations are very different than maybe a four year institution and that may be the only space that they can study at or as Tara said, they go to Starbucks or another location for that. But I did like that student parenting piece because it really is important to understanding our unique student populations that we have at community colleges now as we, as we think about this, which strategies have proven effective for community college libraries seeking to build meaningful, sustained connections with students.
- [20:58]
D
Yeah, I think there's, I'm going to go back to like the chapters in the book again because I think our, our peers and our colleagues have shared a lot of great ideas and I think chapter four that Michelle Handy has is Open Doors and Open Minds really speaks to, you know, accepting all of our students as they come to us and working with them in a, in a very different way than we would in a four year institution. We have some really fun ideas too. Chapter one, Night Pray, where Ann Vincent and Tracy really talk about like a different type of experience in the evening in the library and kind of making the library a social hub on campus that we just kind of talked about a little bit. And then also things like personal librarians, you know, setting up those really deep connections with our students to connect with them in a meaningful and sustained way. And Mixon and Connor talk about that in chapter six. I think that that's a really good way to engage students and make them understand that, you know, librarians are there for, for more than what they expect, I think. And I think they maybe haven't learned what librarians can help them with. I didn't know when I went to undergrad what a librarian really could help me with either. And I was a history major. So, you know, we have to figure that out. We forget those things that we've learned along. And I think those sustained connections can really be developed that way. And I think that not only through direct contact with students, but also contact I value really highly on our campus is our faculty librarians working with faculty across Campus. Right. So to me, our faculty status on our campus is extremely valuable because then they have that interaction in different ways with faculty to bring those students in. If you don't get the faculty, I think personally, this isn't a personal opinion. You have a hard time getting the students. Right. The faculty will drive their usage or at least start their driving their usage to the library. So I think that we may be sometimes undervalue that extra connection to that direct faculty connection.
- [22:47]
C
I also think the other thing I'll add there is we talk about space and updating our spaces consistently or more regularly. I think sometimes if that goes on and your spaces don't get updated or new furniture that, that accommodates new ways of, of learning and, and using your space, I think that can be, that can be a detriment. And I think Jennifer Arnold wrote a great chapter about library spaces as institutional hubs and keeping your spaces up to date. And I think too, I guess, you know, Jose's chapter about who belongs at the reference desk, we talk about engagement and building connection. Is it, you know, it might not, might not only be a library and it might be somebody else. Right. I think a lot of times too, talking about library anxiety, we were lucky enough to have student employees, some great student employees who provide student technology support to each other. And so I think having that peer to peer support is also important.
- [23:44]
B
Yeah, that's a really great idea. And I'm glad that you brought up the chapter about who belongs at the reference desk. So how should community college libraries think about organizational structures and staffing models at reference desks or even in instruction?
- [23:59]
D
I think, I mean, I think chapter does a great job looking at. That's chapter 12 looking at this to start. And I think there's going to be many different perspectives. I think it really depends on the needs of your institution. Right. What are the goals? What type of staffing do you have? What's the size of your institution? How many students are you serving? How many faculty do you have? You know, there's a lot of different factors. So it's going to be, I think, a different answer for every institution. And I think that if it feels like a cop audience, they're like, I can't tell you what to do. I'm like, make a decision. But I think that that's important to consider, especially in community colleges. I think, you know, for, for me in our institution, we really value having those degree MLS librarians that are the main service points. We see a lot of value in that. And that's something we're going to continue to do for as long as possible because if a student comes in to us, even with like a low stakes troubleshooting question, how do I do this on a computer, how do I print or whatever, that's okay. These interactions, they help build trust. They build trust with our librarians. I think that's the first thing to get that connection with a student. And I think that helps reduce things. The idea of coming back to ask for additional help and, you know, being a friendly face first. And then if you hear that maybe troubleshooting questions, something alongside that might be something that you can interrogate a little further, you know, in the traditional reference interview kind of way and find out, oh, actually, you know, they want this kind of one book that they want to find and they can't find it, but really they're doing a research project and they need this other resource or they need these other help, these other items to help them with that process. And so I think that as valuable as it is to have students, I think working student to student for many services in the library is wonderful because I think our students feel more welcomed and feel like they have a more generational connection with them as often as it may be problematic for us. But I think that, yeah, our librarians need to be there either first line or right there immediately for that extra backup and help and support. I think that demonstrating that value is really important. And when we reduce the number of librarians that we have in our libraries, I think we also reduce that potential view of what the library offers the campus. And I think we need to be careful about that. Right. Of our other faculty on our campus are required to have certain degrees. What makes our librarians different? Right. And I don't think it should be. That's, that's a personal opinion. But I think that, you know, if we're asking to make some claims on this, I think that's something that I think is really valuable.
- [26:21]
B
So coming out of the pandemic, we've seen a real change to instructional modality. And so how should community college libraries approach their information literacy instruction to meet the needs of their students? And, you know, does that need to differ from what happens at a four year institution? You know, I was just wondering your thoughts on that.
- [26:44]
C
I know, and I know Tara's got some, some things to say on this too. You know, we're starting to look at, while, you know, institutionally we're looking at AI right as a library, obviously we're, we're looking at ways to, to Incorporate that as well. I think too. We're, we're. I've got a colleague, a faculty librarian colleague who's going to revise a, one of our, like, college success courses that's focused on research to incorporate more OER and AI work. There. We've got it, you know, like my institution, several different modalities that we, that we teach in. And so trying to capitalize on those different modalities and how we're reaching students, whether they're on campus, in the classroom or not. Um, so I think just kind of being, being open to those things and, and just trying to, trying to learn those different, those different modalities and try to. I think, I think one of the things that I've seen is just trying different things and being okay with that. One of those, one of those scenarios. It's like, it's like might not work, might be a complete fail, but at least we know that that one doesn't work anymore. And so where you want to place our efforts next then.
- [27:58]
D
Yeah, I agree. I think, you know, you have to be willing to take some risks and see what could be possible, what could work. I think in the pandemic we saw a big shift for our library. We do a lot of instruction over about, I think right now we're about 400 sessions a year. And so we do a lot of one shots and kind of return sessions too, with students. And we took a big risk this year. We overhauled one of our classrooms. We decided to take it offline, completely redo it and make it into an active learning classroom. Removed the desktop computers, made it all laptops, and also include some high flex components so that we could also have that opportunity to teach that. Because again, I hate to go back to always like, you know, what do the faculty want? What are the faculty driving in the classroom setting? But you know, our faculty want to prep one type of class, but they might be teaching that class in person, online or hybrid. And so how does the library accommodate that change is something that we wanted to be able to approach. And Tish Hayes, who actually wrote a chapter for this text, also works at Moraine Valley. So I'm very lucky. Great instruction librarian, she's in charge of all our instruction, thought, you know, maybe we need to instead look at how we approach that and make it simpler for our faculty. So now they can come and do an in person session, but they can also record that session with us and put it in their online course. Right. And so that doesn't have to change or be recreated In a different way. It's still accessible. It's not as interactive, but it does allow that like passive information gathering and that faculty can reuse that content as they want to or refer back to it, even for students who have different accommodations and needs. And so I think making those changes and just trying to see how it's going to go, it's a big risk. It was a huge risk to redo a whole classroom and not cheap. And it's been great. I think we're looking to replicate that again. So it's really changing how we work with our students and then really changing how we use that seat time and that in class time. Right. Instead of us talking at students, we're doing much more engaging activities throughout the library. Our librarians developed a tour where they walk around the library instead and kind of self guide themselves using a zine. And so that's been really neat too. And so we've really rethought that I think the pandemic was very difficult for online teaching for us and a big change at first, but it's caused us to make these really interesting decisions to come up with something new. And I think it's changing our structure overall. I'm hoping that our next library and hire that we get to make will be someone that focuses on AI and online learning in a different way. And so I could see that definitely changing across the board. I've seen other jobs posted on job lists that look very similar in academic libraries. And I think this is going to be a big shift for msc. That's excellent.
- [30:43]
B
So Spencer, you mentioned that college success course. And when I think of those college success courses, oftentimes I'm thinking that it incorporates not only the library, but other support services on campus. So, you know, I was thinking, how does the community college library fit within the broader ecosystem of academic support on campus to include tutoring and other student success initiatives?
- [31:06]
C
So I sit in that currently right in the middle. So it, it. And from my perspective, it's, it's a lot of work. But if I think when you build your team and you, you know that you need to rely on each other to get certain things done, because at the end of the day, it's not, at that point you're not just, it's not just the library in that area. You're. You're functioning with other units that might also depend on you as well, or look for that partnership to better provide support to students, especially if you're co located or somewhat, you know, located close to one another. So I know, you know, personally in my institution, we work really well together to do referrals and to do programming and outreach and partnership. We do listening sessions with our faculty as an academic support unit and talk about all our different services and how we can make changes to, based on that feedback to better support the faculty and students. And so, you know, you're in that situation, at least from my perspective. It's more than, it's more than the library or we see, we see each other as more interconnected than a standalone unit. I think there's obviously there's different intricacies with the library, I think, and Tara and I have had conversations about this in terms of, in terms of value. But people just see sort of library when really you see library tutoring, testing, academic coaching, maybe first year experience. But then beneath that, you don't see the library might be right. It's reference and instruction, it's technical services, it's circulation reserves, technology, student technology support. So there's all these different areas even underneath the library that sometimes people don't see on that first glance. But I think overall it's been beneficial for us to work collaboratively in that way. But I know it might not be as successful depending on how things are structured or organized at other institutions.
- [33:12]
B
So why is it important for institutional leaders to understand that unique role that community college libraries play within the institution, especially as we talk about equity, access and student success?
- [33:25]
D
Yeah, that's really, that's the whole value discussion, really. Right. That's the whole thing. We have to serve everybody. Right. That's our job. And sometimes we talk about community college libraries being like the best of both worlds. We're really academic libraries, we're community libraries. So we're kind of a little bit public library, a little bit academic library, which I think is really unique and really special about us. And I like that. And I think we need to talk about maybe and understand better that libraries provide equity through access to resources. Right. To help our students succeed. And so I don't think our campuses often realize or continue to realize the full scope of, of the impact of the library in providing this type of access to students and the community and our faculty and employees. We're used to. I think we've gotten really used to libraries just existing in, in our culture. It's something that's really just standard at this point. And we forget that there's a lot of resources that go into making this even possible. And just like Spencer shared, you know, with all these different departments and different arts that make that picture possible and make that usability simple for people, make that access point easy. You know, think about when we, like, you know, didn't have proxy servers where you could log in and you had all these specific, you know, logins and things like that back in the past. So I think that it's just become something that's just natural to us, and we forget about that, and we have to really remind, I think, our institutions about the costs, the labor, and all that work that goes into it. You know, access on our own, on its own isn't free. It's. It's not equitable on its own. You have to actually put work into it to make it equitable. And so I think that that's a big picture in creating that equity across our campuses and providing access and really how we can speak to impacting our student success. Right. I think if we use access as one of those big overarching themes, I think that it's really impactful and a little bit, in my research to just be a little bit of a nerd really showed that that was a huge thing that our executives valued. Right. They couldn't exactly say what that meant to them in a perfect term, but they said over and over again that access was the number one thing that they wanted the library to do. They wanted access to happen. They wanted it to happen for all different populations, and that was what they wanted to facilitate. And so I think that if we can frame the work that we're doing and the value added by the library in the terms of access and then beyond that, equity instruction and all those other perspectives, I think that that's a really good way for us to maybe move forward at looking at demonstrating that value.
- [36:02]
C
And I think, too, just to highlight, there's one chapter on archives, community college archives. So I think. And we. I think if we sort of wrap up kind of talking about value of community college libraries, I think that's also an important point, is not. Not every community college has an archives or even an archivist or anyone to. To sort of lead that work. And so I think documenting the institution's history is important. And so having that role and having those folks who are also out in the community documenting the history of the area as well, and making sure different perspectives and viewpoints and student voice is. Is recognized and in the historical record, I think is important too.
- [36:44]
D
Yeah. And I mean, just maybe touch on one more thing that I think Spencer and I and others are starting to talk about now and kind of looking towards the future of what's going on in our community colleges, and the work we're doing is some, maybe, I'd say, threats to accreditation processes. We've seen some changes coming up, and I'm not sure, you know, each. Each area has a different thing. We just talked a little bit before we started this call about our different accreditors and accrediting bodies. So we saw, you know, that, you know, there's been some removals of standards or things that really speak to the work the library does in some of those accrediting bodies. And I think ensuring that our administrators see the need for those things as that happens, as well as speaking to these accrediting agencies about the value of our libraries is really important. I think that's something we've overlooked in some time and again, kind of goes back to that, you know, natural concept of being the heart of the campus and just kind of being there and existing. And, yes, everyone loves the library. I think we need to go back and advocate with those accreditors and demonstrate what that value looks like and why that's important and why that should be included in those standards. And I think we have some benefits also from those programmatic accreditations that we work with, too. Right. There's definitely value in that, too. You know, nursing programs, paralegal programs, they have different standards that are required for community colleges to have in their libraries to receive their accreditation. So I think that sometimes administrators might gloss over that or may not see that as part of the full picture just because there's so much going on. There's, you know, nothing. Nothing wrong on their end, but there's a lot for them to be able to handle. So I think we need to make sure that we're very clear about how that fits into the accreditation process and procedures, too.
- [38:25]
C
And I think some of that has to do with. With the fact that there's still. We're still up against the challenge of the thought that libraries are still more traditional and passive. Right. Really, things have evolved so much, but I think we're still up against that kind of more historical challenge there.
- [38:48]
B
I'm so glad that you brought that up, because. Absolutely, I would agree that we have to break through that kind of thinking, that we're just a warehouse for books, because that's not what we are anymore. So let me ask you this, Terry. You talked about bringing in a librarian, hopefully in the future, to deal with AI. So how does AI fit into all of this as we think about the value of a community college library, where maybe leadership thinks that, hey, students can just go to an AI tool and get everything that they need. So how do we, in the moving forward continue to communicate the value of a community college library in an era or an age of AI?
- [39:28]
D
Yeah. I'll start with a recent example, actually, that happened at our institution, and we had a program. We work on many teams with program reviews and different accreditation processes. So we're working with a program that shared with us recently in their advisory board meeting that we sit on, that their students are using AI, but they don't know how to use it. Right. They don't know how to use it correctly. And this is a big challenge they're having. And so when we've talked about AI on our campus, we spent a lot of time looking at how faculty can utilize AI in the classroom, how they can track AI usage in the classroom. Right. We're really focused on the faculty side of that, but I think there's a big gap or a big opportunity, maybe I'll say, for libraries to do that, direct student instruction on AI usage. Right. It fits really in with how we look at sources, quality information, you know, And I think that the library has an opportunity with AI to focus on teaching students about the appropriate uses of AI and what to look for, what to be clear on. And so I think that's what we want to do with that position that we're hoping to add to our campus eventually. And we'll keep working on that, But I think that that's something that will. That'll really serve our students really well. And also, I think that, you know, it would be a lot to expect these subject matter experts, you know, a history teacher, a bio teacher, to have to also cover this whole other topic. And I think librarians, I think we forget we're trained as information professionals. Right. I think we need to tell our campus that. And. And I think we. We can really fit into that spot. I think that this is a good opportunity for us. I don't think AI is a bad thing. I think it's a great opportunity for us to teach people about how to use it differently and how to use it appropriately. So I was really happy to hear that feedback from our faculty on our campus and know that we are headed on the right path.
- [41:18]
B
So as we wrap up our conversation, now that the book is out, what are you working on next?
- [41:25]
C
Well, aside from my doctoral work, chair and I have got a couple conference presentations and panels with some folks this coming spring, and I'm also looking forward to a renovation project at one of our campus libraries.
- [41:45]
D
In the near future, Spencer's very lucky. It'll be really nice to see a new library. Yeah. And what I'm working on, I'm working on the study with Kara Melanfont from ACRL or formerly acrl. She's now a faculty member at Dominican. And we are going to be reaching out, kind of following up on some of the work that Spencer and I have been looking at with value and some other things that we've been seeing across the state of Illinois. We're hoping to work with Nilrock, that organization I mentioned earlier, the Network of Learning Resource Centers in Illinois, to really dig into the needs of our librarians in the state and find out what are we missing when we share these resources from ACRL or other organizations that help them demonstrate their value. So we want to do a study to. To figure that out a little bit more. So I'm not getting off this whole value train. I think this is important stuff we need to do. But that's, I think, our my next big research project. And then really I'm just looking at maybe taking some of the things that I put in my dissertation originally and modifying that to maybe share out a little bit more in a more practical way for folks to implement some of that value research that has been done and how to speak to executives on their campus about value research, too. So a little jealous of Spencer, though, in the remodel. I'm hoping we get some updates or waiting to hear on things on our master plan on our campus. So I could be busy, too, but we'll see.
- [43:08]
B
Wow, these sound like great projects. And I'm sure a lot of people listening are jealous about a library remodel. But I'm glad to hear all these great projects that you're going to be continuing with. And I know that I'll be seeing you down at Computers and Libraries in March. So that's exciting. But I want to thank you for your time today. I really enjoyed this conversation. I think it's an important conversation for community college libraries to have.
- [43:32]
C
Thank you so much for having us appreciate the opportunity.
- [43:36]
B
I'm your host, Michael Lamagna, and thank you for listening to the new Books in Library Science podcast channel on the New Books Network.