WKMS continues a new series of reports called Racer Scholar Profiles, highlighting Murray State Faculty research, scholarly and creative activities across colleges and schools. On Sounds Good, Kate Lochte speaks with Ashley Ireland, Director of User & Instruction Services in Waterfield Libraries. The newly established President's Commission on Retention was just one impetus for the research she's conducted.
Ashley Ireland attended a Libraries for Assessment Conference in 2012, which had a goal to help prepare academic libraries to better demonstrate their value to constituencies and to help better describe their impact for the institutional mission.
Working with the library system at Murray State, she was able to pool together data about who checks things out, who sits down at a computer, who is enrolled in a class the libraries do instruction sessions for and correlating that behavior as it relates to retention. The question was: does someone who comes to the library or uses the library resources remotely have a better retention in the next semester? The result was a significant predictor of retention. Freshmen who used the library were nine times more likely and sophomores were four times more likely to be retained.
While there are currently no direct plans for specific outreach, the next step is to create a network of library using graduates, which they can then use to create an alumni network for future input and as a potential future funding resource. Additionally, this data can measure which class sessions have the most impact and how these can be used in a strategic way to increase library usage. Ireland says they'll keep collecting and analyzing data for more relationships and to use the information to be able to better teach libraries and information seeking in a more critical way.
Ashley Ireland is an Assistant Professor and Director of User & Instruction Services, with Waterfield Libraries at Murray State and her story is the fifth in our series: Racer Scholar Profiles. We appreciate the assistance of MSU Jesse D. Jones Endowered Professor of Geosciences Dr. Kit Wesler as ambassador for this series. It highlights faculty pursuing interesting and productive ideas that advance knowledge or create novel works of art and literatures, informing their teaching and exciting students.
