Library faculty and staff lead impactful projects throughout the year. Our Project Highlights page showcases work that has made a difference for our campus community and can serve as a resource for other libraries.
2024 Project Summaries
Dual Credit Support
Librarians partnered with nine dual credit instructors to create or adapt an assignment that connected their students with library resources and aligned with information literacy best practices.
No-Cost Textbooks 2024
Library faculty partnered with three instructors to convert 66 course sections to no-cost textbooks, resulting in an estimated student savings of $13,986 per academic year.
Asynchronous Research Videos
Librarians created video tutorials designed to help online students navigate library resources effectively. The videos focused on using the Library Search and locating peer-reviewed articles.
Evidence-Based Email 2024
In the second phase of this project, all currently utilized, student-facing automatic emails were updated to reflect best practices as outlined in the Email Content Guide.
Collection Assessment 2024
The project developed a collection assessment plan to evaluate the currency, depth, and breadth of the library's holdings, aligning them with institutional goals through data analysis and faculty feedback, leading to the addition of valuable resources.
Website 2.0
The project team made comprehensive changes to the library’s website. This process included administering a website audit to assess needed changes, creating new pages, updating images, and conducting usability testing with students and faculty.
2023 Project Summaries
Showcasing Diverse Collections
Increased awareness of the Library’s diverse collections via promotion across library and campus communication channels and book displays in the new Multicultural Collective space, resulting in the creation of seven curated OverDrive collections and 379 Bitly engagements.
Liaison Librarian Visibility 2023
Liaison librarians increased face-to-face time with students via class visits and community events, conducting extensive faculty outreach that resulted in 20 class visits to promote research consultation services and 23 Meet with a Librarian appointments.
Enhancing Library Space
Library faculty and staff made subtle yet impactful changes to the library space, carefully measuring the resulting data. The insights gained, such as identifying underutilized spaces, will play a crucial role in shaping upcoming modifications.
No-Cost Textbooks 2023
The Library partnered with three instructors to convert nine course sections being taught in the Fall 23 – Spring 24 academic year to no-cost textbooks, saving students an estimated $34,687 per academic year.
Evidence-Based Email
Project team members conducted a campuswide student survey and two rounds of interviews to create an evidence-based Email Content Guide for Library communications.
Library Service Excellence
The Library Service Excellence project developed and administered a series of customer service, reference, and marketing trainings for library service desk staff.
2022 Project Summaries
$1 Million Milestone
In 2022, the Library hosted a campuswide celebration honoring the over $1 million in student savings generated by Library No-Cost Textbook initiatives. The project was also recognized as a finalist for the 2023 IFLA PressReader International Library Marketing Award.
No-Cost Textbooks 2022
Library faculty partnered with six instructors to convert 19 course sections to no-cost textbooks during Summer 2022, resulting in estimated student savings of approximately $96K per academic year.
Good Government Award
The Library led a submission of the Cashman Good Government Award through Academic Affairs at Nevada State. The Award honors government entities who put together workplace experiences with ingenuity. The Academic Affairs Division was named a finalist for the Award.
Library Data Initiatives
Library faculty developed new procedures for collecting and reporting library usage data, and analyzed available research consultation data to better inform subject liaison assignments and outreach decisions.
ILL Improvements
Library staff worked to optimize the library’s new Interlibrary Loan system in order to reduce turnaround time for requests and to improve patron satisfaction. The project saw significant gains in patron satisfaction, and some improvement of turnaround time.
Liaison Librarian Visibility 2022
Library faculty designed new ways for course instructors to connect students with liaison librarians for research help, increasing librarian face-to-face time with students via class visits and library events.
2020-2021 Project Summaries
LibTech
In response to student feedback, the Library upgraded laptop lending services. Improvements included adding new laptops, updating software, revising library policies to extended checkout periods and remove daily late fees, and acquiring new laptop accessories.
Library Assessment Plan
In 2020, we developed a library assessment plan that focuses on “closing the loop” and meeting accreditation requirements. We then began applying this plan to all library assessments including the 2021 Ithaka survey and student artifact assessment.
Library Search Usability
This project focused on improving access to library resources by reducing usability issues with the library’s search interface. Several usability issues were identified and resolved, and a resource linking audit was performed to address linking issues to full-text articles.
Faculty Outreach
Liaison librarians conducted 1-on-1 outreach meetings with 72% of full-time faculty, resulting in a significant increase in library instruction requests, improved awareness of library services, and stronger librarian-faculty relationships.
Brand Ambassadors
Student workers completed training on the Library's brand identity and values to enhance their customer service skills in person at the Service Desk and online via the live chat service.
New Student Support
We enhanced library support for first-year students during the pandemic by embedding library videos and information in the New Student Orientation and College Success Canvas shells.