Students as Partners in the Academic Library: Co-Designing for Transformation

Abstract

Across the sector, universities are transforming the student experience by reconceptualising the ways in which they partner with students. The academic library is at the heart of the university experience and libraries have a long history of collaboration and engaging with their communities. As such academic libraries are the perfect next frontier within which to embed the ‘students-as-partners’ approach. This paper proposes a broadening of partnership with students to improve the governance, operations and design of the academic library. Taking La Trobe University Library as a case study, the authors explore a series of examples in action across six domains: space transformation, library governance, service excellence, research, resource design and collection renewal. Within these domains the paper provides insights into how the relationship between the academic library and its community might be shifted to foster critical student/staff partnerships.

Keywords:

• Academic libraries
• co-design
• professional staff
• student engagement
• students as partners

Notes

1 The ASK La Trobe help zone is a ‘one-stop-shop’ student support service located in the Library. It operates as a shared service and ASK La Trobe partners include the Library, Student Administration and Student IT. Students are employed as casual staff and work alongside professional staff across all service areas within the help zone.