Neosho County Community College in Chanute, KS, is a Films On Demand subscriber. We recently talked with Todd Knispel, Coordinator for Library Services at NCCC’s Chapman Learning Center, about how his library promotes its resources, makes the most of its budget, and encourages usage among patrons, students, and researchers.
Tell us one way you’re helping users who may be hesitant to embrace technology to take advantage of your library’s online resources.
We have libguides and tutorials that show how to use many of our resources, but, for me, I have found that one of the best ways still is to spend time one on one with the patron. Spending that time to help them build their confidence using the technology is a good way to create a patron that will want to use our resources and maybe create a lifelong supporter of libraries in general.
What have you done that has most impacted usage at your college?
The thing that comes to mind that we do here that has impacted library usage is our library is physically accessible to students 24/7. Any student with a card key can use the facility to study, use a computer, print something out, or whatever else they need to do. We have allowed access for four semesters and have not had any issues that made us second guess opening our doors 24 hours. There are a surprising number of students that come in between 12–4 a.m., and no, we are not staffed for all that time. We have cameras everywhere the areas students can access, and safety staff will pass through afterhours as well.
Tell us how you are making the most out of your library budget in these uncertain economic times.
The seemingly ever-shrinking budget is a challenge faced by many libraries. One of the things that I found helpful was to integrate resources that the state library offers to our resources on my campus. One example is the state library had a similar database that provided enough related content to one we were purchasing, which allowed us to discontinue the one database and reallocate those monies to keep other, more vital databases and other budget items from being lost.
What is your favorite part of being a librarian?
My favorite part about being an academic librarian is the students. The ability to guide a student to find those pieces of information that will help them learn and seeing that light turn on is quite a feeling.
What do you think is the library’s most important responsibility at your institution?
I think the library at my institution’s most important role is information literacy—making sure students understand how important information literacy is to critical thinking. The ability to locate, evaluate, and use information is an important skill for people to have, and I think being able to impart that knowledge effectively creates better citizens.
Tell us about your favorite YouTube video/libguide, etc., your library has created to promote a resource.
Right now my favorite libguides are our two new infographic citation guides one of my staff just created for MLA and APA styles. I think she did a fine job in updating what we had previously.
