A Conversation with Faculty and Graduate Students

In July 2025, the UX Team interviewed five faculty and eight graduate students to explore their awareness of library services, their needs, and their perceptions.

Research Questions:

• What do faculty and graduate students know about the library? 
• What services have they used?
• What do they need?

Method:

• Interviews

What did we learn?

• Services are valued but hard to discover.
  • Faculty lack awareness of the Digital Learning Commons and of library developed Digital Learning Objects more broadly. Some were even surprised to learn that we are involved in this type of content creation.
  • Faculty have very limited time for exploration of the library’s resources.
  • The library does not do a good job at marketing.
  • Graduate students want the full suite of library services available to them to be highlighted more clearly throughout the year.
• Graduate students were most often first made aware of library services by an in-person library presentation, their advisor, or a peer.
• Graduate students turn to their advisor and peer networks for research support. 
• Graduate students recognize that some questions relating to their research (software, publishing, data, etc.) are very specialized. They are happily surprised and grateful if there is someone at the library who can help, but they do not expect the library to have expertise in everything.
• Most faculty mentioned referring their undergraduate students to Writing Services. Faculty were much less familiar of library services for graduate students.
• AI is reshaping graduate student skills and faculty are inconsistently approaching AI.

Recommendations

• More targeted and strategic Team-based outreach to faculty and graduate students throughout the year.  
• More internal referrals, where appropriate. Make the connections to other library services for users.
• Ensure that the collection of asynchronous resources and service offerings align, and continue to align, with emerging needs.