Library Orientation

When I arrived at work today (Wednesday), there was so much that wasn't ready for library orientation in the afternoon. By 11:30, the biggest three of the five electronic resources were again working, access to the library catalog was fixed, I had a special network connection for the library website show-off, a USB extension and patch cable had been found for me to use, and a computer projector was delivered for library orientation. I headed to lunch. I stayed longer at lunch than I had originally planned, but made it back to the library 15-20 minutes before the first orientation session. Within 10 minutes before the first session, the needed chairs were moved into position and the projection screen was delivered and set-up.

The incoming class of ~100 students was divided into four, mostly-even groups. The first two groups were much different than any other orientation groups that I had taught. These two groups got very much into asking questions about the library and finding out extraneous and detail information. For these two groups, the orientation took well over the normal 20 minutes and was pushing the 40 minute session length. The second two groups were less involved and more like previous orientation years--a bit of a glazed look in the eyes and few to no students asking questions. Even these two groups were more involved that a lot of groups from previous years.

My theory is that by stretching orientation out over an entire week--rather than 3 days--the experience is less intensive and students and better able to process, absorb, and respond to the information being presented.