Fogelman's Librarians- Edits

On February 15 “Ask a Librarian Live,” a service that Fogelman’s librarians began offering in the fall to become more accessible to students, started up again for the spring semester in the Lang Café.

A librarian from the New School’s Humanities and Social Sciences library will be there every Tuesday and Wednesday from 11:30 to 1:30 to field students’ questions by helping them find particular sources as well as beginning research on a topic.

Lang Academic Advising first sent out email notifications in November and then again in February to announce the return of “Ask a Librarian Live” sessions.

This Fall, the Fogelman librarians got the idea to reach out to students from other academic libraries in places such as Penn State where librarians make themselves more available by positioning themselves in areas that students already frequent. Last semester, the Fogelman librarians also held sessions for NSSR students at 6 16^th Street and are planning to expand to the new student center unveiled last month at 90 5^th Ave as a means of reaching a broader base of students from a variety of divisions.

The librarians sat down with Lang administrators including Kathleen Breidenbach to establish a time slot that would maximize student traffic so as to make themselves available at a time and place convenient to students.

“We’re trying to reach as many students as possible in the space where they gather or hang out,” Fogelman librarian Brita Servaes said.

Lang sophomore Mia Bruner expressed confusion with the online “Ask-A-Librarian” service currently offered and also mentioned she dislikes the Fogelman stacks on the mezzanine floor since books fall due to the poor design of the moving shelves.

It’s been two years since Fogelman was moved temporarily to Arnold Hall where they will remain until 65 5^th Avenue is finished.

“We’re spread throughout the building so it’s kind of hard to have an identity as a library here,” said Fogelman librarian Paul Abruzzo.

Fogelman’s Director John Aubrey explained that there’s a lesser flow of students and faculty in Arnold Hall as compared to 65 5^th Ave and attributes this to the fact that there are fewer faculty offices and less humanities classes, especially NSSR ones, held in the building.

“People have a hard time finding the space,” said Servaes.

Since the move, much of the collection has been moved off site and what remains available is spread out between three floors of Arnold Hall. The first floor hosts the circulation desk and the reference room where one of the three librarians is available 9:00 to 6:00 on weekdays and 11:00 to 4:00 on Saturday. After hours, students can ask questions through an email service called “Ask-A-Librarian.” This name transferred over to their sessions in 16^th Street and the Lang Café and those upcoming at 69 5^th Avenue, as “Ask A Librarian Live.”

The mezzanine of Arnold Hall hosts Fogelman’s offices and several stacks and the rest of the books circle the 3^rd floor computer lab.

“[“Ask A Librarian Live” is] something that we probably will continue even after we have the new space. It makes sense to be where the users are, providing it works,” Aubrey said.

Bruner seemed positive about the idea of “Ask A Librarian Live” but also wondered how the sessions will be used.

“I don’t know how many questions people have about the library.”

The librarians also acknowledged the lack of student involvement.

“Sometimes nobody will come up [to “Ask A Librarian Live”], sometimes you spend an hour there and nobody has any questions. But that happens at the reference desk anyway,” Aubrey said.