Baker College CampusGuides and LibAnswers

		LibGuides http://guides.baker.edu
		LibAnswers http://askus.baker.edu

At Baker College, the librarians have been making magic by using CampusGuides & LibAnswers as collaborative tools.

CampusGuides has really helped the librarians strengthen their relationships with faculty. Gail Powers-Schaub, Library Director at Baker's Muskegon campus, writes: "The best thing about the guides at my institution has been the ways in which they have enabled me to connect with faculty to advance student achievement, in ways that would never have occurred to either of us. It's as if one plus one equals a million."

But don't take her word for it – even the faculty are singing its praises. Gail Bullard, Director of Health Sciences for the Baker College system, tells us that she "can certainly tell the difference in student writing and discussion board activity when a student is using a guide routinely. The guide-using students can readily cite their sources, and their sources are current and focused on the course material. This is generally not the case for those students using a popular search engine for research."

Ann Kucera, Electronic Resources Librarian, also says us that the additional user level in CampusGuides has allowed them to work with faculty to create guides. But LibAnswers' strength, Ann tells us, has been in helping librarians across the state work together – Ann writes that it "allows our 11 libraries to collaborate in answering virtual reference questions."

Her colleague, Reference Librarian Tessa Betts, elaborated a little bit for us: "It allows us librarians to crowdsource – it saves time when we don't have to answer the exact same question multiple times. We also find it illuminating to see what kinds of questions are not being asked at the Reference Desk - this can inform future instruction sessions and collection development."

Thank you so much to Baker for telling us your story – we're glad to have you in the Springshare family!

Cool Guides to Check Out

How to do Library Research - http://guides.baker.edu/content.php?pid=148605

Pro and Con - http://guides.baker.edu/content.php?pid=106994

Popular Questions and Answers

How long can I have a book checked out? - http://askus.baker.edu/a.php?qid=23860

I need my library barcode number. Where can I find it? - http://askus.baker.edu/a.php?qid=22176