Outreach and Engagement Working Group Report

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Report of the Working Group

Definition of Outreach

At Ohio State, outreach and engagement is defined as meaningful and mutually beneficial collaborations with partners outside the academic community. This may include partners such as those in education, business, and public and social service.

Outreach and engagement is—

That aspect of teaching that enables learning beyond the campus walls
That aspect of research that makes what we discover useful beyond the academic community
That aspect of service that directly benefits the public

To this end, the working group defined four goals for outreach for the university library system. These goals are enumerated in the next section along with potential activities that may meet these goals. It is expected that additional ideas and activities will be generated by library faculty and staff.

Goals

1. To lower or eliminate barriers to access of our materials

creative licensing of electronic resources
new modes of interlibrary loan of physical materials
better marketing of our resources and services to the community
grants for scholars to come to OSU to use unique materials

2. To promote deeper information literacy in the community

community workshops
public presentations
partnering with OSU faculty outreach programs
partnering with public libraries and/or Kent SLIS to offer workshops

3. To develop and promote unique materials and expertise

digitizing special collections or materials around specific themes
online exhibits
creative marketing to OSU faculty to include OSUL collections in their outreach projects

4. To encourage active involvement from the community

online book clubs
public reviews in catalog
online or physical exhibits with materials added by public
MySpace, Facebook presence

Action Plan

Incentives/Motivation

Outreach is part of everyone's job. Participation in projects will be viewed favorably in annual performance evaluations and promotion and tenure reviews.
Successful outreach will be supported. Library leadership will support and sustain successful proposals. Those who work on projects should expect that their efforts will have lasting impact.

Proposals

Library leadership will encourage individuals, units, or small groups to propose outreach projects that meet one or more of the goals listed above. Proposals are requested to insure that projects are feasible and planned but are not meant to eliminate the possibility of changes to projects as they progress. Proposals should be no longer than one page and include the elements below.

Goals Proposals should indicate which of the four outreach goals the project meets.
Objectives List the specific activities of the project.
Resources needed Provide an estimate of staff time and money needed to complete the project.
Funding sources Indicate what funding sources are expected (i.e. library funding, will a grant be sought?)
Measures of success List measurable accomplishments that will indicate the project has succeeded and a brief plan for evaluating the project.

Proposals should be posted to the library system's Outreach and Engagement Wiki and forwarded to the immediate supervisor and appropriate Assistant Director or other senior administrator for review.

Reporting

Project Participants

Upon completion of the project, project participants will add a status report to the wiki that includes the following elements. Projects that last longer than six months will have updates every six months.

Measures of success and project evaluation
Cost of the initial project
Estimate of costs required to sustain the project, if applicable

Library Administration

Upon receipt of the project report, library administration will provide feedback on future directions via the wiki.

Audiences and Partners

Alumni Association
COSI
Immigrant community in Columbus
INFOhio
Kent State School of Library and Information Science, Columbus Campus Students
Museums
OPLIN
OSU Regional Campuses
P-12 students
Public Library
State Library
Teachers
WOSU

Existing Programs on Campus

Young Scholars

Metro School

Weinland Park

OSU Extension

Faculty outreach projects

Potential Projects

Subject portals

Libraries would pay to host specific documents or databases for the public or for a registered group of the public for a specific amount of time.

Interactive social/research online space

Libraries would host site(s) based around a topic where faculty, staff, alumni, and community members could add their own documents, photos, audio, etc. but also be connected to research materials. For example, "the decade of student unrest", could have library materials connected to this period, places for the community to contribute their own materials for preservation. They could add reminiscences, connect with others, participate in online discussions, view articles, view materials we have scanned from our collections. Through tagging, the user could make linkages chronologically, topically, geographically.

Libraries would sponsor book discussions related to exhibits offered on campus by various departments. We have done this once in relation to the touring Frankenstein Exhibit from the American Library Association and the National Library of Medicine.

The Health Sciences Library, in conjunction with the Library for Health Information in University Hospital, would work with public libraries to develop bibliographies as well as public programs related to health literacy.

Examples from other Institutions

Information Literacy

Community Workshop Series (See example: Chapel Hill, NC)

University in the Library a project that provides a new kind of public outreach by the University of California to county, city, or district libraries in less-populated areas. In the UIL program, UC Davis faculty speakers travel to community libraries to give presentations on subjects of special expertise in the program topic. http://outreach.ucdavis.edu/programs/univlib2.htm

Interesting idea from UNC-Chapel Hill , writing workshops for high school students. http://www.thedurhamnews.com/112/story/1079.html .

Access

Research Travel Grant from Southern Methodist University. http://www.smu.edu/swcenter/clemdeg.htm