We Can Go the Distance!

Transitioning Student Assistants to Remote Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Janice Dees and Brittany KesterUniversity of Florida

Introductions

Janice Dees

Access Services

Manager

Student Assistant

Hiring, Training, and

Supervision

Stacks Maintenance

& Access Services

Policies

Brittany Kester

Education

Librarian

College of

Education Library

Liaison

Manages the

Children’s and

Young Adult

Collection

Objectives:

After this presentation, participants will be able to:

● Share ideas and projects for student assistant remote work

● Identify how to support student assistant transition to remote

work

● Prepare for potential complications for student assistant remote

work

● Consider ways to include student assistants in innovative projects

● Recognize the value of remote work from student assistants

Background● Education Library

○ Within College of Education

○ 2 Librarians, 3 Staff

● Student Assistants

○ 12-14 students

○ Federal Work Study

● Spring 2020 = COVID-19 Shutdown

○ How to support student employees?

○ Can we create work from home projects?

Creative Projects

Assigned to four Student Assistants.

Types:

● Social Media

● Instructional & Promotional Comics

● Murals (Children’s and Young Adult Collection & Computer Lab)

Goals behind these projects:

● Delegation of social media tasks away from Access Services Manager

● Developing professional skills of student assistants

● Library promotion & beautification

Creative Projects● Detailed work proposals were

created, agreed to by SAs, then

sent to HR along with required

paperwork

● SAs used Canva and Adobe

Creative Cloud programs

● SAs emailed a draft of their work

each Sunday

● Requests for edits sent Monday

● Final drafts delivered on

Wednesday

Social Media Posts

Library Technology Comics

Library Mural Designs - Children’s and Young Adult Collection

Library Mural Designs - Computer Lab

Metadata Project

● Need: Students reported

difficulty in searching the

library catalog for the books

needed for their classes

● Phase 1 Solution:

Improvement of metadata

for award winning and

honor books

Qualtrics Survey, included:● Title

● Author

● Publication year

● ALEPH Number

● Education Library owns a copy of

the title?

● All awards the title has won

● Award(s) listed in UF Libraries’

catalog metadata?

● Subject headings correspond to

the award(s) theme?

https://uf.catalog.fcla.edu/permalink.jsp?20UF035614972 http://www.clcd.com/#/singlebook/ngnoliOQKOgoiomm/Reynolds,%20Jason/Long%20way%20down

http://www.ala.org/rt/emiert/cskbookawards/coretta-scott-king-book-awards-all-recipients-1970-present

Communication with Student Assistants

● Detailed Remote Work

Proposals with links

● Training

● Weekly check ins

● Additional training for new

awards as needed

Preliminary Results

● 2,410 books added to the Qualtrics form

● 1,011 books are owned by the UF Education Library

● 185 books have no metadata in the catalog about receiving an

honor or award = 18%

● 302 books are missing information in the metadata subject

field that correspond to the reason the award or honor was

given = 30%

Successes

● Continued student employment for 14 student assistants

● Student Assistants works approximately 1000 hours of remote work

● Creative Projects

○ Professional Skill Building

○ Collection of usable tutorials and social media posts for future

semesters

● Metadata project

○ Completed over 2,400 qualtrics entries

○ Initial catalog and metadata improvements

○ Better understanding of our children’s and young adult collection

Challenges

● Mental Health Support

● Communication with students

○ Time management when remote

■ Final Exam Period

● Response: Additional Zoom Check Ins

Challenges

● HR Work from Home approvals and paperwork

○ Initial technical challenges to have paperwork signed by hand,

then process moved to electronic signatures via DocuSign

○ End date continually changed (April 15th then May 10th)

● Work Study Program Funding Issues

○ Extra monitoring

● Lack of communication from departments outside library system

Student Assistant Remote Work Takeaways

● Transition to remote

○ No complaints, smooth transition

○ Only required personal computer and wifi, which all students had

access to

● Work and responsibilities

○ Interesting opportunity to develop skills outside of normal job duties

○ Opportunity to tackle projects which otherwise would have needed

grant funding

○ Our student assistants were very thankful for continued employment,

especially when other job opportunities and support were lost to them

Staff-Faculty Collaboration!

● Experience with managing remote work

● Opportunity for to work together in project management and supervision

● Better understanding of each others duties and responsibilities

● Improved communication channels

● Professional Skill Building - Zoom, Databases, Qualtrics

● Supported each other

● Bring in other departments and more collaboration

● Continue as backup project during Fall semester

● Amazing things can be accomplished!!

Audience Share

Questions?

Presenter Contact Info

Brittany Kester

brittany.kester@ufl.edu

352-273-2793

Janice Dees

jdees@ufl.edu

352-273-0368