Student Groups

Outreach to Student Groups

In Spring 2021, I organized and worked with a team of six colleagues at Trinity College to begin an outreach initiative to student organizations and clubs on campus. Up until this point, most of our outreach was targeted to academic departments.

The primary goals of the initiative were to learn about the various student groups on campus (e.g., mission, goals, events, needs), identify opportunities for collaboration, include the student voice in our student-centered programming, services, and initiatives, and build relationships for sustained partnerships.

We began by creating a shared workflow for the initiative that outlined the tools and processes we would use for generating and housing the list of student groups to reach out to (there were 128 groups in total), our methods for reaching out and the structure for meetings with groups, and ways to manage and share the results of our efforts with the Library and Information Technology Services division as a whole. 

I created a shared outreach log using Airtable and we used Bantam link (Trinity’s student groups list) to populate a list of student groups to begin the first round of outreach. The Airtable outreach log includes group names, the type of organization, primary contacts, Bantam and social media links, assigned team member, date, status, and a space for meeting notes and next steps. Of the 128 student groups, we selected 62 to reach out to over the course of several semesters. Among the different categories of student groups, we chose to start with academic, arts, sports, civic, cultural orgs, special interest groups, and the SGA. Each team member selected eight groups to reach out to over the course of the Spring 2021 semester. 

To add some structure and consistency, we created a list of standardized questions to ask the different groups. The questions were designed to capture the goals of this initiative. We also created a menu of the different services and resources we offer along with hyperlinked examples and shared that menu with student groups in our initial emails to give them ideas about how we might partner. 

During the Spring 2021 semester, we reached out to 38 student organizations and clubs, met with 15, and established collaborative relationships with 10. We have worked consistently with these groups to co-create library collections, build virtual mini guides, hold very successful pop-up library events, and develop student-centered programming co-sponsored by these groups.

Below you will find the workflow for the initiative and the outreach tracker Airtable.

Co-Created Collections

Below are some examples of work I co-created with student groups I reached out to through our outreach initiative. The "Read Black Women/Black Nonbinary Writers Mini Collection" was created through my work with the Trinity College Black Women's Organization (TCBWO). In our initial meeting, the TCBWO e-board requested that we surface and highlight materials in our collection produced by Black women and Black nonbinary writers. I began by surfacing items in our current collections and then working with TCBWO to identify and purchase new materials. We then held a very successful pop-up library event at the student-run Underground Coffee shop on campus. We brought new items from the collection for students to checkout on the spot and TCBWO treated participants to free coffee or tea. 

I co-created the "Black Resistance & Empowerment Poetry Mini Collection" with the Trinity African Student Association (TASA). The group wanted to create a poetry collection centered around Black resistance and empowerment after the campus learned through official communications that an unknown student glued a banana to the dorm room door of a Black student. We built the collection from existing materials in our collection and also purchased new materials. The group also wanted to feature specific poems on their social media channels, so the collection also includes links to specific works, recorded poetry slams, and a Padlet board for the campus community to include their favorite Black resistance and empowerment poems or poets.

The "Women's History Month Mini Collection" was created through partnerships with several student groups, library colleagues, and one of our Student Technology Assistants. The "Pre-Law Resource" list was initially created in partnership with Trinity's Pre-Law Society. It is intended to serve as a toolkit for students who are considering applying to law school. The toolkit will be converted to a LibGuide in Spring 2023. My colleague Mary Mahoney, the Digital Scholarship Coordinator, also formed a partnership with Trinity's Career and Life Design Center. The Center will feature the collection on their site as well and share it as a resource for students who are considering a career in law.