Fridays Before Finals [1]
We have been hosting Fridays before Finals since October 2014. This program is held twice a semester: the Friday before midterms and the Friday before finals.
Normally our library closes at 5 p.m. on Fridays. On these occasions, we stay open until midnight and the library hosts quiet study upstairs and pizza and games downstairs.
Our goal is to provide a quiet study space for finals and midterms as well as stress relief for students during this strenuous time.
At first, it took quite a bit of planning. We did not have a game collection yet, and different staff members would bring their own games from home. We now have our own Xbox as well as a dozen or so board games. Aside from the games offered, the only other planning involved is ordering pizza and ensuring a student assistant is scheduled to watch the desk.
Our marketing includes fliers posted across campus, advertising in Abbey News [2] and boosting our "Create an Event" [3] through Facebook.
We spent $150 total: $135 for pizza, drinks and paper products and $15 for boosting our Facebook post.
We require two staff members and one student assistant to set up. We rearrange the furniture, set up the Classic Nintendo that a staff member brings in, set up our Xbox Kinect Sports Game [4], and disperse board games and card games throughout the ground floor.
The buffet is set up at the ground floor service desk. On the main floor, our student assistant mans the desk, and bottled water and cookies are provided.
The program always goes well, with 40 to 60 students at each event. I know that one student who was visiting campus decided to come to Belmont Abbey while attending our event. We achieved our goals of providing quiet study space and eliminating stress.
There should be at least two dedicated staff members for the game portion of this program. These staff members are needed for set-up, clean-up, and to chaperone the event. An additional student assistant or staff member is needed to man the desk. In the past we tried to host this event with only two staffers, and it was chaotic.
An unexpected outcome of this program is that students who have never been to the library before attend this event for the free pizza. When they find out the staff is pleasant and the atmosphere is nice, they become regular library users.
We have not conducted a formal evaluation of this program, but the positive response speaks for itself.
About This Library
The Abbot Vincent Taylor Library serves the campus of Belmont Abbey College. This small, Catholic, liberal arts college is home to Benedictine Monks and our on-campus students. Our student population is about 1,800. Our library is headed by Don Beagle, who believes in the Learning Commons model. We share our 20,000-square-foot library and staff of 10 with the Academic Resource Center. Collectively, our services include: Information Literacy classes, one-on-one and group research assistance, embedded librarianship, course-specific and subject LibGuides, tutoring, study hall and testing. Additionally, we offer specialized publishing software, video-creation software and large-scale poster printing. Students are able to come to the library with an idea and leave with a finished product.