Library Orientation Week and Beginning-of-the-year 20-minutes sessions

Library Orientation is a program traditionally conducted for the benefit of first year students at most, if not all universities. At the University of Pretoria (UP), it is presented for all Faculties’ first year students at the beginning of each academic year. At Hatfield campus the librarians had much fun conducting the program for our many students from the Faculties of Humanities, EBIT/NAS, Theology and Economic and Management Sciences.

The purpose of Library Orientation was to introduce the Department of Library Services’ resources and services and make known the rules and regulations to first year students so that they can make use of the UP libraries effectively. The orientation program included a quick tour of the Merensky 2 library.  Some student groups also had the privilege to visit the MakerSpace in Merensky 2 with its 3D printing and scanning facilities. Challenges integrated in the program required students to interact with library staff and different library spaces (i.e. MakerSpace, Circulation desk, various Faculty libraries within Merensky 2, etc.) - through our library resource collections, our online research tools, technology and our social media platforms and our UP Libraries mobile app. Most students immediately connected to the UP free Wi-Fi and downloaded our UP library mobile app during the training sessions.

It was such an amazing experience and I learnt a lot throughout the programs, right until the end of our 20-minutes library sessions which followed  the Orientation Week. The enormous potential that the technology and social activities have for marketing our library services is apparent from the fact that many first year students had to visit the library to follow up on what they had been taught during the Orientation Week programs. I think that if we bring more gaming into our library orientation programs and sessions, more students will learn to use our libraries more effectively.  #TeamGAMIFYOurUPLibraryOrientationPrograms