By Rebekkah Hudson with reflections from Sophia Medina, Annika Cruz, and Braulio Quintana
In the early fall of 2023, the University of Florida’s George A. Smathers Libraries welcomed a new Undergraduate Library Advisor (ULA) cohort of four undergraduate students: Sophia Medina, an English major; Annika Cruz and Braulio Quintana, both computer science majors; and me, Rebekkah Hudson, a history major. The ULA program, which is coordinated by Student Success Librarian Jasmine Simmons and Political Science Librarian Patricia Takacs, was designed to increase undergraduate student engagement with the Libraries by training student leaders to represent, promote, and teach library services to their peers.
After training on Library resources and information literacy, touring all six branches of Smathers Libraries, and interacting with both the Library associates and Libraries’ webpages, we got involved in campus-wide Library outreach. We worked on several projects, both individually and as a group, that involved creating engaging social media content, tabling in non-traditional spaces, and developing resource materials (such as flyers, handouts, and digital reading lists) to promote new and existing resources and services to the students on campus.
One early collaborative effort we participated in was the Student Success Strategic Planning Retreat on October 5, 2023. The retreat largely focused on defining what “student success” meant to the Smathers Libraries and allowed us to participate in meaningful conversations that resulted in the development of a plan for student outreach and communications. This event was just the start of many opportunities that would allow us to get directly involved by sharing ideas and insight into what student success means to us. Specifically, we got the opportunity to see physical data on prior student success efforts that would inform us on how to invent new ways of improving the results through outreach and engagement.
An important, collaborative, and informative event for us was the 2023 Fall Fest on October 10th at the Reitz Union, “Libraries Give You Superpowers!” At Fall Fest, we engaged in one of our biggest tabling opportunities, and were stationed at one of three service genres: virtual services, spaces, and borrowing services. Student participants would stop at each of these stations to learn about the services and get enough stamps on punch cards to be awarded a free T-shirt. Participants could also gain other types of free swag along the way, such as pins, stickers, and pens, and they could stop by the photo booth to become part of a comic strip that they could take as a memento.
Another important and collaborative outreach event to highlight was First Gen Day, held on November 8, 2023. At the event, we ran two tables alongside Smathers employees: one for button making and the other for handouts and swag. The button-making table was especially appealing to the students who attended the event, as we were able to make buttons for the students after they selected a dust jacket design to cut out. On the swag and handout table were the campus maps highlighting the location of the library branches, and the stress ball brains were in high demand. Prior to this event, we spent a week putting together a digital first-generation reading list and designed a flyer with a QR code for students to access the list online. The First-Generation College Students libguide now includes a few of the books that were on our list.
In addition to working alongside the faculty and staff, we filmed street-style interviews as video content for @UFLIB Instagram to help boost student engagement with the libraries. We continued to bridge the gap between the students’ needs and the libraries’ resources while working independently on a variety of projects. One of the individual projects was integrating some of the student group’s publications into the library’s digital collection and ensuring their place in history by connecting the student group with the library repository. Another project sought to showcase the libraries’ sci-fi collection by hosting a reading room at SwampCon.
As a recap of her personal project for the preservation of student-run publications within UF’s digital collection, Annika Cruz says:
“Through the ULA program, I was able to connect Sparks Magazine with the Institutional Repository to ensure the preservation of their student-made publications within UF’s Digital Collection. By incorporating archiving into their workflow, Sparks Magazine can ensure that their student works last forever as part of UF history. I plan to create a template of this workflow to help other student publications find their place in the Institutional Repository in the future.” As of June 4, 2024, 26 copies of Sparks magazine have been added to the IR@UF.
They can be found using the “all volumes” button here: https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00098626/00001.
They can be found using the “all volumes” button here: https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00098626/00001.
Reflecting on her experience hosting Smathers Libraries’ first reading room at SwampCon, Sophia Medina shared her excitement with the outcome of her individual project.
“I created the University of Florida George A. Smathers Reading Room at an annual, local convention in Gainesville. Visitors to our reading room were able to see first-hand some of the exciting graphic novel and sci-fi collections we have at the libraries! The books were gathered from the Education Library, Library West, and Marston Science Library, and I’m glad to have been able to share them and put them in one room for visitors to read and borrow. It was a way to make students aware of some of the entertaining materials the libraries have; they might not have known the libraries had such collections before,” said Medina.
“The turnout was greater than I expected! Around 65 people showed up to the room, and a handful, affiliated with UF, borrowed books they saw on display. I believe the libraries plan to continue this initiative and will perhaps bring a reading room to other events. Look out for that!”
Reflecting on his contribution to the ULA program, Braulio Quintana offers the following insight:
“My time this past school year being a ULA has been nothing short of amazing. I have been able to help on different initiatives regarding outreach and idea-pitching and have had a great time doing so. Being able to work on efforts to educate the undergraduate community has been self-rewarding as I hope to continue to provide a great service for my peers and those in under-represented communities.”
Throughout the year, we were offered the chance to see the inner workings of the Smathers Libraries, which helped strengthen our ability to interact with our undergraduate peers and discover innovative ways to connect them to the libraries. To sum up the most impactful things we accomplished, we engaged in meaningful conversations about student success in the libraries through participation in the Student Success Strategic Planning Retreat and Taskforce, offered ideas on marketing and outreach strategies, participated in several outreach opportunities across campus, and worked on a three-part video series that gained over 25,000 views (and counting) and 900 likes between UFLIB Instagram and Twitter, which were created as an engagement tool to help increase awareness of the libraries. Through the ULA program, we have gained personal and professional experience and developed a collaborative working relationship with library faculty and staff.
If you would like to share any project ideas, suggestions, or resources that you believe could contribute to the ULA program, or if you simply have questions about it, please contact the Student Success Librarian, Jasmine Simmons, at jsimmons3@ufl.edu.