Abstract
The data used for this study was collected from Librarians Across Institutions: Establishing Outreach Programs, a study to gather data from academic outreach librarians across the United States to find what factors contribute to effective outreach programs. Conversely, the study also collects data on factors that hinder outreach programs. This study examines support for the most effective and least effective outreach programs carried out by outreach librarians in five support areas: support from other librarians, support from staff, support from faculty, support from students, and support from volunteers. The results collected from the survey contains data from 75 outreach librarians across the United States in 2020.The analysis was completed using dependent sample (t-tests) using Stata software V.16.1.
 The target group was identified by the creation of a comprehensive list from LinkedIn profiles of academic librarians whose profiles contained outreach in their job title or had outreach experience listed on their profiles. The data shows there is a difference in support levels for library outreach programs of the most effective in contrast with the least effective programs. In the most effective programs’ category, (80%) of the respondents had librarian support and (60%) from the least effective programs had librarian support. The results also revealed that there were significant statistical differences in librarian, staff, and student support groups. In conclusion, results from the study suggest that outreach librarians are innovative and use communication and collaboration techniques to outsource support from librarians, staff, faculty, students, and volunteers to create effective outreach programs.
Highlights
The data used for this study was collected from “Librarians across Institutions: Establishing Outreach Programs,” which gathered data from academic outreach librarians across the United States in order to identify factors that contribute to—and hinder—effective outreach programs
The data used for this study arose from “Librarians across Institutions: Establishing Outreach Programs,” which collected survey data from seventy-five academic outreach librarians across the United States
The ability to interact with the participants and to explain more of the details about the research might be a reason why most of the responses came from LinkedIn rather than from the email sent through institution listservs
Summary
The data used for this study was collected from “Librarians across Institutions: Establishing Outreach Programs,” which gathered data from academic outreach librarians across the United States in order to identify factors that contribute to—and hinder—effective outreach programs. The results revealed there are significant statistical differences in the levels of support from librarian, staff, and students between the most and least effective programs. Results from the study confirm our understanding that outreach librarians are innovative and use communication and collaboration techniques to garner support from librarians, staff, faculty, students, and volunteers to create effective outreach programs. The scholarly literature shows that in addition to budgetary concerns, the work involved in creating outreach programs often requires the collaboration of groups, departments, and library staff who perform outreach activities (Carter and Seaman 2011). The research was conducted by asking outreach librarians to rate the level of nonmonetary support they received from each of five support categories—librarians, staff, faculty, students, and volunteers—for their most and least effective outreach programs. The author employed a concurrent mixed-method survey to collect both quantitative and qualitative data, analyzed that data to determine whether the level of support from each support category has a statistically significant effect on programs’ effectiveness
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
