Transforming Libraries to Serve Graduate Students

Graduate students are critical stakeholders for academic libraries.

As libraries continue to reinvent themselves to remain relevant, spaces, services, and instruction targeted specifically for the needs of the graduate student community are essential. Transforming Libraries to Serve Graduate Students is a practical atlas of how librarians around the world are serving the dynamic academics that are today’s graduate students.

In four sections—One Size Does Not Fit All: Services by Discipline, Degree, and Delivery Method; Librarian Functions and Spaces Transformed to Meet Graduate Students’ Needs; More Than Just Information Literacy: Workshops and Data Services; and Partnerships—readers will discover a plethora of programs and ideas gleaned directly from experienced librarians working at some of the top academic institutions, and explore the power of leveraging their library initiatives through partnerships with other university units. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, graduate students have comprised between 14 and 15 percent of all students enrolled in higher education since 2000, and are expected to exceed 3,300,000 students in 2020.

While the traditional graduate student starting their fifth consecutive year of study still populates university campuses, graduate students also include seasoned professionals seeking an advanced degree to further career goals, career changers, international students, and online-only students.

Each grad student comes with their own levels of expertise, challenging librarians to provide targeted help aligned with the expectations of their specific program of study.

Transforming Libraries to Serve Graduate Students incorporates the experiences of librarians from across the United States, Canada, and Europe into thirty-four chapters packed with programs, best practices, and ideas readers can implement in their own libraries.