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LAAP Library Module Report, January 14, 2003
The Library Notification Module was conceived in order to bridge a gap in
communicating with new Regis students, particularly distance students, who otherwise
might not be aware of the full range of library resources available to them. In the initial
planning stages, the module was designed to direct students to apply for a Regis library
card, which at that time was used for remote access to library databases. During
development of the module, a proxy server was purchased and became operational about
a week before the first live run of the LAAP Library Notification Module (LNM) on
Colleague.
The final LNM design sends an e-mail to students (those without e-mail will be sent a
letter, although this part of the process is still in development) encouraging them to apply
for a RegisNET account, which is used for remote access to library databases. A link is
provided to the RegisNET application form, and each student is additionally given a web
link to a library resource guide for doing research. These guides are designed with
individual Regis programs in mind, so that a student in the MBA program, for example,
would receive a link to useful resources for research in business and economics.
Although the resource guides duplicate content available directly from the library web
pages, the links provided in the LNM welcome letters are used only for this purpose,
allowing us to track web page logins as a result of the notification.
At this point, I have tracked the number of letters e-mailed from August 30, 2002-January
7, 2003, a total of 2196. Of those, 149 were returned due to problems with the recipients’
e-mail accounts. Other measures of the efficacy of the LNM will include snapshots of
log files for the resource guide pages, and an e-mail survey sent to students who should
have received notification through the module. On the anecdotal side, I have received
two e-mailed “thank you” notes from students in response to receiving the notification,
and have heard from many in new student orientations that they “got an e-mail from the
library” after they had been accepted to their programs. I’ll have a better idea of how
they make use of that information once the survey is underway, but in the meantime, I’m
confident that pushing this information to new students has upped the percentage of
students aware of a valuable Regis resource.
Tom Riedel
Distance Learning Librarian