Abstract
Outreach is a necessary component of an academic library’s operations and often requires extensive time for the planning, approval, execution, and assessment depending on the personnel involved and the scope of the event. Recent literature has started to examine how academic libraries are planning outreach to align strategically with the goals of their larger institutions, but not how they balance these efforts when new opportunities arise throughout the academic year. This article will provide a brief analysis of the literature which addresses issues that academic librarians who plan outreach face. The second half of this article will provide a case study of how the author planned, created, and implemented an outreach plan at her academic branch library. This case study will detail the process of how she used an outreach plan to establish outreach that was efficient and impactful with limited staffing, while also aligning strategically with the goals of her library and the larger institution. In addition, this case study will detail how she used this outreach plan throughout the 2019-2020 academic year to guide decision making when new outreach opportunities would arise. This article will conclude with lessons learned from this process.
Highlights
While there is wide agreement that outreach is a necessary “ ” There is no set standard for definining or planning outreach
Component in an academic library’s operations, there is a gap in the literature regarding how to create outreach programs that are efficient and effective and can account for unexpected additions to the outreach program
To create an outreach plan for my branch library, I started by scanning the literature to identify trends in how academic libraries initiate their process for designing outreach programs
Summary
To create an outreach plan for my branch library, I started by scanning the literature to identify trends in how academic libraries initiate their process for designing outreach programs. Curriculum mapping has the potential to illuminate gaps and overlaps in an outreach program, which ensures that outreach is effective to a wide array of students and efficient with the resources available (LeMire and Graves 2019) Another method for strategic outreach planning emphasizes the role of assessment throughout the planning process. After a year of observing the culture of outreach in my library, I wanted to create an outreach plan that was comprehensive in its scope, allowing time and space to reflect on whether and how a specific event or program supports the strategic priorities of the Libraries and the institution. 2019–2020 outreach plan serves as a baseline to consider new routes to reaching students, though the roadmap is ever changing
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