Contributing to the Library Student Employee Experience: Perceptions of a Student Development Program

Melilli, Amanda; Mitola, Rosan; Hunsaker, Amy

doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2016.04.005

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Engaging student employees in the day-to-day work of academic libraries has long been a cornerstone of our systems (Arnold-Garza & Tomlinson, 2017;Ireland & Jackson, 2015;McKenna, 2020;among others). Budget realities coupled with a desire to engage with students-creating meaningful professional experiences for them while also providing the opportunity to acquire new and valuable skillsets-make the undergraduate student employee a ubiquitous asset in libraries across the higher education landscape (Aho, Beschnett, & Reimer, 2010;Becker-Redd, Lee, & Skelton, 2018;Melilli, Mitola, & Hunsaker, 2016).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mentoring is a great way to both teach students and show them the bigger picture, while even more significantly being a high-impact practice (Becker-Redd et al, 2018;Denda & Hunter, 2016;Mitola, Rinto, & Pattni, 2018;Reiman-Sendi et al, 2018;Rinto et al, 2019). Reports in the literature provided evidence that giving students room to be a part of the process resulted in a sense of pride in their accomplishments, investment in their work, and greater job satisfaction (Hogan & Conlin, 2019;Melilli et al, 2016). With this case study article, we aim to contribute to the discussion at the nexus of student employees working in support of library scholarly communication efforts and their job growth and satisfaction.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Practical and the Aspirational: Managing the Student Employee Experience in Library Publishing Efforts

Nelson

Thoms

2021

Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication

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Student employees are a critical component in the workforce of academic libraries. While more established library services have the benefit of attracting student employees specifically interested in their work, scholarly communication programs, and library publishing efforts in particular, have more difficulty describing and garnering interest in their work. This article describes the journey of the Digital Initiatives Unit at Utah State University Libraries as we navigated the particular trials that come with library publishing—specifically delving into the work of our institutional repository (IR) and the role of student employees in those efforts. The labor of our program is variable and largely project-based, which has presented a number of challenges related to our student employees: understanding the larger context of their work; retention of knowledge and skills alongside their ability to prioritize; and a struggle to transfer skills from one project to another. Addressing these problems involved more intentional gathering of student feedback, colleague brainstorming, and trial and error; through which process and results we are gaining a more developed understanding of the critical importance of the student experience. When student employees see their work as more than just a job, and recognize the skills they are learning, they come away with greater satisfaction and our unit benefits from improved outputs. Using what we have learned, we will be able to continue our efforts for a better student experience as well as creating future goals for our unit.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Practical and the Aspirational: Managing the Student Employee Experience in Library Publishing Efforts

Nelson

Thoms

2021

Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication

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“…SELG organizes workshops, classes, and resource training activities that are offered throughout the year. In 2012, SELG developed a workshop series and certificate program covering practical skills for school, work, and personal life (Melilli, Mitola, & Hunsaker, 2016). SELG also provides a venue for students across library functional areas to interact with each other as an informal cohort, acknowledging that the Libraries are one of the largest employers of students on campus.…”

Section: Description Of Program/servicementioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Student Assistants into Digital Repository Workflows: Challenges and Best Practices

Miskey

Mazmanyan

Lampert

et al. 2020

LLM

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The Scholarly Communication Initiatives and Digital Collections departments within the University adapted staff workflows to become student-centered, where workers create digital content for the University’ digital repositories. Each department has a diverse set of needs; Scholarly Communication Initiatives hires students to help with the creation of metadata records, review open access options for sharing each work, and upload items into the institutional repository. Digital Collections relies on students to scan, create metadata, and upload images online that reflect physical holdings in Special Collections and Archives. Utilizing student workers also provides more time for full-time staff to work on higher-level projects and to update, rethink, improve, and streamline existing workflows. Both departments have found that student-centered workflows teach technical and transferable skills while also encouraging students to grow professionally, academically, and socially, setting students up for success beyond graduation. Empowering the whole student and encouraging their personal and collaborative growth thus helps each department to become more efficient and successful in their missions, a triumph that is possible for any library department of an academic institution. While there is a large body of research on student workers in libraries, including on the topics of management and specific functional areas, there is very little research focused on student workers in digital repositories. This article begins to fill this gap and discusses the philosophies and methodologies of both departments’ approaches, as well as the results of implementing student-centered processes for the department and full-time staff.

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The Benefits and Challenges of Working in an Academic Library: A Study of Student Library Assistant Experience

Benjamin

McDevitt

2018

The Journal of Academic Librarianship

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Contributing to the Library Student Employee Experience: Perceptions of a Student Development Program

Cited by 10 publications

References 11 publications

The Practical and the Aspirational: Managing the Student Employee Experience in Library Publishing Efforts

The Practical and the Aspirational: Managing the Student Employee Experience in Library Publishing Efforts

Integrating Student Assistants into Digital Repository Workflows: Challenges and Best Practices

The Benefits and Challenges of Working in an Academic Library: A Study of Student Library Assistant Experience

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