Orientation: Welcome to the Library!

Each August and January, we welcome new students to the SU Libraries at Orientation. The Guerrieri Academic Commons is a beautiful building, but it’s big and it can be an intimidating place. New students, whether freshman or transfer, often aren’t comfortable asking questions and can end up feeling a little lost.

At Orientation, we try to make sure students know where to go to find and check out a book or borrow a laptop, where to find course reserves, print a syllabus or a class assignment, get help with research, deal with laptop or tablet issues, get a drink of water, etc. And we try to make sure they know that librarians are not scary people, and it’s not only okay to ask us questions, we welcome questions.

On Saturday, August 24, more than 850 students came through the Guerrieri Academic Commons during Orientation. They learned about what’s available on each floor, visited the Pit (officially, the Research Commons but known almost universally as the Pit), checked out the Library Service Desk, learned where the book stacks are and toured the MakerLab. In the next month or two, many of them will be back with their English 103 or Honors 111 classes to learn about finding, using and citing the Libraries’ resources, especially electronic resources such as databases and journals. Caroline Eckardt, student success and engagement coordinator, and James Parrigin, coordinator of library instruction, managed the event for the SU Libraries.

Of course, most of our students come in far more often than just a couple of times at the beginning of their first year. In fact, every student comes into the library, on average, every two days! It’s the academic heart of the campus.