Article note: on libraries, retention and roi
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Citation for the article:Mezick, Elizabeth M. “Return on Investment: Libraries and Student Retention.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 33.5 (September 2007): 561-566.Read via E-journals from EBSCO.The essence of this article is that the author looked at library expenses and staff hiring to measure the impact of those factors on student retention. I have been thinking about retention here and there and in some other places. The article reinforces the common argument that libraries cannot afford to be complacent, and that they need to be more accountable to their constituents.Things that made me think:”Retaining a student is fundamental to the ability of an academic institution to carry out its mission. A high rate of attrition is indicative of a failure on the part of an institution to achieve its purpose” (561). Basically, if you are losing a lot of students, especially half or more, there is definitely something going on that needs to be addressed.”Libraries need to be able to demonstrate how expenditures for resources and services result in significant contributions to academic and social environments that positively impact institutional outcomes such as student persistence” (561). You not only need to build the facilities and staff, but you also need to document how exactly these things contribute to the mission of the campus and to student success.On the importance of information literacy: “Attainment of information competency and related skills, such as the ability to research effectively using print, online, and electronic retrieval systems, is essential to the learning process” (562). Our instruction librarian and I are pretty much in agreement on this. She is very passionate about the idea that if students do not learn the necessary research and information literacy skills early on then they will not be able to succeed later when they will need to apply those skills in new ways. …
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