Rachael Muszkiewicz

Get to Know Your Librarian: How a Simple Orientation Program Helped Alleviate Library Anxiety

Library orientations do their part to familiarize students with information literacy, and how the library fits within university life. But what if an orientation could give a student a strong introduction to their academic librarians? Research in academic libraries has noted that library anxiety remains a continual problem among current students. Valparaiso University librarians created the Get to Know Your Librarian program, which sought to make librarians accessible. Using humor and casualness, incoming students were “introduced” to librarians through a series of fun facts. This simple program was successful in helping alleviate incoming students’ library anxiety before their first semester.