Planning for Meaningful Student Engagement

Posted on September 22, 2026 in Blog Posts

The start of a new academic year is an opportunity for academic librarians to rethink how we engage with and support students. While students are back in classrooms, libraries, and campus events, they continue to have diverse needs and responsibilities that may make traditional approaches to library engagement less accessible. Students may prefer to connect in person, virtually, through chat, email, or text. This is an opportunity to be more intentional about how we build relationships with students. Throughout this post, I offer reflective questions to help us reimagine how we connect with and support students.

How are you making yourself available to students?

I am so eager to attend student events and make myself available to student organizations. Therefore, I try to move beyond the physical library space and meet students where they are. Doing so has made something very clear to me: if we want students to see librarians as resources, we have to be willing to enter their spaces rather than always expecting them to enter ours.

Some suggested ways of doing this include attending student organization meetings, participating in campus events, visiting residence halls, collaborating with student affairs, or simply spending time in places where students naturally gather. One of my colleagues once had a great idea: set up a table at a student event and offer students a quick survey in exchange for being entered into a prize drawing. What made the activity valuable was not simply the incentive. It created an opportunity to ask students about how they use the library, what they need, and what they may not know about the resources available to them. That kind of engagement is worth being intentional about.We should not think of outreach as an opportunity only to listen but also to engage.

Do students have multiple ways to reach you?

One thing I did not want us to lose from the pandemic is the flexibility that virtual research consultations created. In-person appointments are valuable, but they should not be the only option. Students may be balancing remote courses, work, commuting, and caregiving, or they may prefer to connect digitally. Accessibility means giving students meaningful choices in how they engage with us. Whether through chat, email, virtual or in-person consultations, text, drop-in hours, or research guides, we should offer multiple points of connection while also making it clear how students can reach us. Share your office location, appointment options, and contact information in classrooms, course materials, and research guides. The easier we make it for students to connect with us, the more likely they are to see the library as a resource they can turn to.

Make it easy for a student who has never worked with a librarian before to understand how to ask for help.  The goal is not to make ourselves available every minute of the day. The goal is to make the pathway to us clear.

Are you being intentional about how you build relationships with students?

Student engagement is not only about research consultations and instruction sessions. It is also about relationships. For academic librarians, especially those of us who work closely with students, there is value in learning something about the people sitting in front of us. What are they studying? What brought them to their program? What are they interested in? What challenges are they encountering as they navigate college?

This does not mean that librarians need to become students’ therapists or academic advisors. It means recognizing that students are people before they are research questions. Sometimes intentionality looks like remembering a student’s name. Sometimes it means asking how a previous assignment went. Sometimes it means recognizing that a student seems overwhelmed and slowing down rather than rushing through a database demonstration.

These small interactions can shape whether a student sees the library as a place where they belong.

What is your process before meeting with a student?

Before meeting with a student, I like to understand their research question as thoroughly as possible so I can come prepared to support them. I typically follow up with an email confirming their inquiry and asking whether their research needs have changed. I also ask what they have tried so far, including any databases, search strategies, or resources they have used. During the consultation, we build on that work together, identifying what is working, addressing challenges, and developing strategies to advance their assignment or research.

I like sending a wrap-up email to students after our meeting. It allows me to summarize what we discussed, share any resources or search strategies we identified, and clarify their next steps. It also provides students with something they can refer back to as they continue working on their assignment or research project. More importantly, the follow-up email is another opportunity to let students know that the consultation does not have to be a one-time interaction. I want students to feel comfortable reaching out. This small act of follow-up can turn a single research consultation into an ongoing relationship with the student.

Curiosity is Key

As academic librarians, we have an opportunity to be curious about students’ experiences and allow what we learn to influence our work. We can ask students what makes it difficult to seek research help. We can learn which communication methods they prefer. We can invite feedback after consultations. We can partner with student organizations and campus departments to understand needs that may not be visible from behind the reference desk.

The pandemic forced many of us to rethink how we provided library services. Five years later, we have an opportunity to be intentional about what we carry forward.

We do not have to choose between virtual and in-person engagement. We do not have to choose between the library and the spaces where students spend their time. And we do not have to choose between providing excellent research support and building meaningful relationships. We can do all of these things.

Below are some resources that have guided me as an academic librarian who did instruction and interacted with students daily. Hopefully, these resources will be helpful to you.

Resources

• Creating A Student-Centered Alternative to Research Guides: Developing the Infrastructure to Support Novice Learners (2020)
• Dismantling Deficit Thinking: A Strengths-Based Inquiry into the Experiences of Transfer Students in And out of Academic Libraries (2019)
• Critical Librarianship in Health Sciences Libraries: An Introduction (2019)
• Practicing Social Justice in Libraries (2022), edited by Alyssa Brissett and Diana Moronta

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About the author:

Jamia Williams (she/her) is a health sciences librarian. She is also the co-creator and co-host of the podcast LibVoices and the founder of The Diversity Fellow’s blog.

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Interested in contributing to TIE? 

Email to Fatima (fmohie-eldin@ala.org) at Choice with your topic idea.

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Header image is a detail of This is Harlem by Jacob Lawrence. Courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. © 2021 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. For more information, click here.

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