When we all switched to remote learning in mid-March, a colleague joked that he wished he worked for the library because we were already providing remote services and resources.  He was only partially right. Yes, while we have been providing many online options to students, we also recognized that this was different. 

Throughout the course of the past five months, colleagues from the Libraries and the Student Achievement Centers have been working hard to ensure access and support while expanding resources to our students, who are now learning in a completely different environment.

Your environments have changed because children are now schooling from home, you are sharing spaces, there are more distractions, etc. Remote learning presents many new challenges and we will continue to respond to help you succeed during, let’s face it, this super weird time.

One of the things we miss most, is enjoying that face-to-face connection we have with our students. As a result, we will be launching a new service to help personalize our relationship with each student this fall. The Personal Academic Librarian (PALS) service https://libguides.madisoncollege.edu/PAL will provide students with regular, customized connections to our librarians who can help students with technology, research, life skills and more. This personalized partnership will offer incentives in the form of earning a professional badge, a letter of recommendation and other useful tools.   

Faced with new ways of learning, we have created a Digital Backpack Workshop Series https://libguides.madisoncollege.edu/library-workshops of free, 30-minute sessions of skill building on all sorts of topics needed for success. It includes workshops on navigating Blackboard to tips for improving video learning to conducting online research to protecting your online privacy to connecting to an online tutor and so much more. No registration required. These workshops were featured on NBC15.   

We have been adding new online tools and resources to our collection for you. We now have an online virtual anatomy lab, an online newspaper collection, a language database, and over 250,000 new electronic books to access.

We will also be adding e-audiobooks and other valuable resources you will need to complete your coursework. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram to make sure you get the latest updates about collection and more.

Recognizing our role in helping you find the support you need, we have upped our chat game. That Chat With Us button on the College web site is our team of librarians working behind the scenes to help with any questions you may have regarding the College. We will be available 7-days a week, in real-time, ready to help.

Other services will be offered as the semester moves forward, but we want you to know that in some ways, it is “business as usual” for us. Our mission remains that it is all about our students; we are dedicated to your success.

Be sure to click on our library web page https://libguides.madisoncollege.edu/library for student computer help, research help, and more. We are happy to help and wish all of you a successful semester. You are missed and we hope to see you soon.  Stay strong and healthy.