NCLA 2019

Imagine this…
You’ve just been through 3 days of torrential rain and wind. Your power went out in the first 24 hours. Your roof is leaking, your floor is soft, and your food is spoiled. Everything is wet and it’s getting humid. You’re feeling overwhelmed and miserable. You find yourself heading to the library.
Hurricane Florence caused major damage to our Eastern North Carolina communities. As our libraries opened after the storm, our value to our communities was never more apparent. We became a space of normalcy. A space with electricity, running water, and cool, comfortable seating. Patrons came in to re-charge their phones and themselves. They needed help communicating with loved ones, finding sources of food and water distribution, and getting started with disaster assistance.
This poster describes what our community needed from our libraries after a natural disaster and how that experience prepares us for the future.

Hosting a Game Night during the first week of classes and using Game Night to alleviate Library Anxiety in Generation Z - this poster session will demonstrate how libraries can leverage quiet study evenings before finals to coincide with game nights. Having these two events together helps the student relax during midterms and finals and brings new students to the library where they meet library staff in a relaxed setting. Having this setting as a first or near first experience with the library helps to alleviate issues Generation Z may have in regards to library anxiety.

Collecting statistics, shelving books, and relocating library furniture require a significant amount of library employee time. But, what if we harnessed our efforts and energy more meaningfully? In our session, we will demonstrate how we have repurposed library spaces and reorganized library content based on usage statistics. By collecting detailed headcounts that note student preferences for seating, we have been able to craft student-centered placement of library furniture and renovation plans. This approach prevents libraries from continually spinning wheels on resetting furniture configurations that do not accommodate student needs. By collecting content-specific book statistics and collaborating with academic stakeholders, we have been able to offer more flexible access and labeling of our Children’s and YA literature collections. This approach has increased usage of materials, reinvigorated study spaces, and highlighted resources that were previously underused. Session attendees will take away constructive ideas that can be accomplished with little or no budget that will change and revitalize how students plug into your library.

We tend to think of accessibility in terms of physical disability. This is a huge part of the equation, but there’s so much more--and we sometimes impose barriers to access without realizing it. Even innocent signs like “Ask at the Desk for Help” can prevent patrons from fully accessing the library’s resources and services. In this session, we will look at library accessibility from the perspective of both public services and technical services, with takeaways that can work at any type of library. We’ll explore accessibility issues that you might not have considered, and we’ll recommend affordable fixes that anyone can implement, whether you work on the front lines, behind the scenes, or in administration.

Could your library’s signage do with a makeover? The session will look critically at many types of library signs and review positive and negative aspects of library signage. We will also address how to conduct a signage audit and the importance of library branding. Dr. Curtis Rogers is the Communications Director for the South Carolina State Library and has been working in the library and information science field for 31 years. He has worked at the Union (SC) Carnegie Library, the Charleston County Public Library and has taught courses at the USC School of Library and Information Science. He has conducted seventy-six signage audits to date in South Carolina.

My colleague and I plan to assess the gaming habits and preferences of student assistants working in Jackson Library. We plan to design and implement a survey for use of students working in access services, the digital media commons, and the computer lab located in Jackson Library. Survey questions will include demographic information such as: age, class rank, race, gender, socioeconomic background, as they choose to disclose. The remaining questions will center around why they play games, gaming categories, solo versus group play, frequency of use, gaming system preferences, awareness/use of library gaming collection, etc. to determine if gaming-related events in the digital media commons may be targeted to specific user groups and/or if gaming use increases engagement with other library collections.

Libraries, particularly at community colleges, have traditionally been stuck in a “static mode” in how libraries function as” place, a service and a resource” in relationship to student engagement.
As a part of the CP Library 5-year strategic plan and in the designing of new facilities, the library established a marketing committee. The charge of the committee is to create enlightening and educational programing that illuminate library space, services and resources, and to engage with the college partners and the community.
This presentation will highlight new library facilities, approaches to marketing and outreach, and share practical experiences with attendees, which can be shared with colleagues, and replicated in respective libraries

In 2016, a partnership between the J. Murrey Atkins Library and the College of Computing and Informatics at the University of North Carolina Charlotte launched a gaming lab to support the educational needs of computer science students in the artificial intelligence, robotics, and gaming concentration. A second-floor space, that housed shelving for videotapes, was repurposed within the library’s new Area 49 technology hub for the exploration of digital games, specifically their roles as cultural and artistic artifacts. The purpose of the gaming lab is to ensure availability of equipment and required course materials for all artificial intelligence,robotics and gaming students. Furthermore, students and other patrons not enrolled in the game design program may also use the lab for personal enjoyment of interactive media. The Gaming Lab is part of an effort to build collaborative spaces in an academic library where new ideas and technologies are accessible to all.