Delaware County Community College, located in Media, PA, is a Films On Demand subscriber. We recently talked with Michael LaMagna, DCCC’s Information Literacy Program and Library Service Coordinator, Assistant Professor, and Reference Librarian, about his favorite part of being a librarian as well as how his library encourages usage and makes the most of its budget.
How do you alert faculty to the new resources your library acquires?
Delaware County Community College has a robust liaison librarian program. The personal relationships and professional connections between the liaison librarians and the faculty in each division at the College allows us to effectively communicate the new resources the library acquires. This could be through an email to the divisional faculty, liaison newsletter, or simply knocking on office doors.
Tell us how are you making the most out of your library budget in these uncertain economic times?
In these uncertain times it is essential that academic libraries act as good stewards of the institutions’ resources. This means looking closely at usage data to determine the value of each subscription service to ensure it is meeting the needs of our students, faculty, and staff. With a growing distance-learning population and the desire of our students to have greater flexibility in access, it is always important to consider the ease of access and use of resources. We also communicate any changes in our FTE with all our vendors to ensure we are paying the correct price for resources.
What is your favorite part of being a librarian?
This is an easy question to answer—simply put, it is working with our students. Whether it is at the reference desk or through information literacy instruction (regardless of modality), I enjoy working with our students and helping them make connections with the subjects they are researching. Typically, students are having trouble starting a research assignment or hit a roadblock in the process, and helping them navigate the available information has been rewarding.
What do you think is the library’s most important responsibility at your institution?
Beyond providing our students, faculty, and staff with access to information in a range of formats, it is working with all constituency groups to ensure they become better consumers of information and find what is relevant to their needs given the rate at which content is being created.
