Work-in-Progress: "Ask Us Here" in the Shadow of Hunt Library

Engineering students are often unlikely to seek out assistance with library resources, especially when the engineering campus is physically distant from the library. An on-site reference program (“Ask Us Here”) was initiated by North Carolina State University engineering librarians to provide services and outreach in engineering student spaces on the university’s sci-tech focused Centennial Campus. With a flexible approach to location and a small physical footprint, librarians were able to respond to student reference needs, collect data in a lightweight and adaptable manner, engage with the College of Engineering community regarding the construction of the James B. Hunt Jr. Library on Centennial Campus, and develop service expectations for this new facility. This paper and the accompanying poster will discuss the program, as well as trends observed and improvements made in the five semesters preceding the opening of Hunt Library. Introduction & Background The James B. Hunt Jr. Library opened in January 2013. A two hundred thousand square-foot building (containing both library and non-library spaces) on a satellite campus that was previously served through a small branch library, the Hunt Library represents a dramatic shift in the level of library resources, spaces, and services available on the campus. Additionally, as a building designed to be (and aggressively promoted as) the iconic “heart” of the campus, the building is the subject of curiosity among students and faculty.1 North Carolina State University’s engineering departments are currently split between the main campus area and a nearby satellite campus. Centennial Campus has a science and technology focus and is currently home to six engineering departments as well as NC State’s College of Textiles, several university centers, and a variety of corporate and governmental partners. The only library on the campus, prior to opening the Hunt Library, was the Burlington Textiles Library in the College of Textiles. The Textiles Library was home to the engineering librarian team, and was the main library service point for the campus. With Hunt Library in the planning and construction stages, a remote reference program, named “Ask Us Here” (branded similarly to the Libraries’ “Ask Us” chat reference service and the “Ask Us” integrated service point in Hunt Library) was launched in Fall 2010. The program would provide reference services to engineering students and faculty, in their spaces and at point of need. The engineering students' mix of technological savvy and confidence in their own problem-solving skills, coupled with their distance from the main campus and its central library, makes them more reluctant than other students to fully utilize library services, even if they make P ge 23390.2 use of library spaces.2,3 Ask Us Here was meant to address that reluctance, as well as act as a form of low-impact, passive outreach on the subject of the new library. The concept of a providing library services in non-library spaces is not a new one.4 The Ask Us Here service was modeled on several established programs, notably “Ask Us HERE!” at Simon Fraser University5 and “Stump The Librarian” at Purdue.6