The Department of Library Services continued its collaboration with Fly@UP (The Finish Line Is Yours) by hosting two pop-up library outreach sessions during this term. This collaborative partnership enables the library to communicate to students how the library can support and assist them in being successful with their studies. 

Here are the impressions of the two faculty librarians responsible for these sessions:

10 May - organized by the Faculty Library for Humanties:

The Humanities Faculty Library co-ordinated the pop-up library set up on 10 May 2018 on the Hatfield campus, close to Tribeca. We received assistance from the Department of Library Services’ Learning Centre and Marketing section. Only four of the Humanities staff members were able to take part in this outreach programme, and we were therefore glad to receive assistance from our colleagues in the EBIT, Natural & Agricultural Sciences and Economic and Management Science Faculty Libraries.

It was fairly quiet on campus that day, and we had fewer bodies passing by than we had imagined would be the case. We found that students were unlikely to stop at the pop-up library on their own; it worked better if we stepped away from the gazebo and engaged them in conversation, inviting them in. Once we did that, we often found they were willing to have a conversation, or ask questions. In some cases, we found that students were not sure what we could do for them, and therefore they could not easily come up with a question to ask us. There were also, however, students who were very clued up about their librarians and the library resources.

We often started out by asking whether they know about the library app, and whether they had downloaded it, and used it before. Being from the younger generation, students are perhaps more used to apps in general, but we did manage to show a few of them that the app could be used for searches and to find other information to specific questions. A number of students requested that discussion room bookings should also be accessible from the app.

The competition, questions and prizes were definitely a way to engage the students, and we often found that that was the reason why they would be willing to step under the gazebo – the goodies! The pop-up library concept is a good exercise to undertake, as long as the staff manning the gazebo are quick-thinking and engaging enough to draw the students in and establish a conversation. Prizes and hand-outs are essential to get students interested, but staff who are willing to engage in interesting conversations with them, are just as important.

27 August - organized by the Faculty Library for Economic & Management Sciences:

The Faculty Library for Economic & Management Sciences hosted the pop-up library on 27 August 2018 at the piazza and we had help from our colleagues from Humanities, EBIT, Natural & Agricultural Sciences Faculty Libraries. The MakerSpace team together with some colleagues from Stellenbosch joined the pop-up library. The day started very slowly because we started at 11:00 and the students may still have been in class. It started picking up just after 11:30. There was growing interest because of the MakerSpace 3D printed items and the presence of the printing machine. The students wanted to find out more about what happens at the MakerSpace because so many of them did not even know that it existed. We then took the opportunity to draw in more students by walking up to them, inviting them to see what we were showcasing, telling them about the competition and the prizes they could win and giving out the delicious sweets. We told them about the library app and showed them how easy it was to use it. We discovered that many of the students had the app but had not used it yet, so they were quite surprised in discovering that it was very easy to use and that you did not have to come into the library all the time.

What we realised is that students love free goodies and sweets, the more we have them, the more students are interested in listening to us. Many of the students do not really know what the library offers so we need to push on in marketing the app. We had some issues with the wi-fi connection at the venue and that made some demonstrations a bit more challenging. Overall, it was a great experience and I hope we can have more goodies for students in the future so that we can attract more of them.