Mapping the student engagement journey: Understanding & envisioning the library’s role

ABSTRACT

Student engagement opportunities allow undergraduate students to pursue their interests, grow into engaged citizens, and connect their disciplinary knowledge in an applied context. Academic libraries are still investigating the ways they can support, enhance, and provide these opportunities. This exploratory, qualitative research project used semi-structured, in-depth interviews to learn more about undergraduate student engagement experiences and the student’s perception of the role of the library in these opportunities. The authors explore and amplify how students see the library and provide suggestions on how libraries can continue to contextualize their work in student engagement opportunities.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic libraries
• student engagement
• student journey mapping

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge and thank the Institute for Research Design in Librarianship and Penn State’s Student Engagement Network for their support of this research. They would also like to thank Jill Barr-Walker for her mentorship and insight during the writing and review process of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.