The Library's Contribution to Student Learning: Inspirations and Aspirations

Megan Oakleaf is an Associate Professor in the iSchool at Syracuse University; e-mail: [email protected]. © 2015 Megan Oakleaf, Attribution-NonCommercial (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) CC BY-NC. George Kuh and Robert Gonyea’s 2003 article entitled “The Role of the Academic Library in Promoting Student Engagement in Learning” appeared in College and Research Libraries in July 2003, after being presented as an invited paper at the ACRL 11th National Conference that April.1 Their paper presentation stands out in my mind to this day. It was my first time both attending and presenting at an ACRL conference, and I was nervous. My co-presenter (Amy VanScoy) was my supervisor, and our library director (Susan Nutter) sat in the front row. The stakes were high! Luckily for me, two things happened that day. First, our presentation was not a disaster. Second, Kuh and Gonyea’s session immediately followed ours. With my presentation duties discharged, I was able to finally relax and fully engage with the content they shared. As it turns out, it was a good time to pay attention. Over the last several years, my research and interests have dovetailed with the message they communicated in their presentation, and George has been particularly helpful to me in my efforts to capture and convey the value and impact of academic libraries. It’s important to point out that Kuh and Gonyea aren’t librarians; they’re assessment experts, prolific authors, and national leaders in conversations about college experience, student success, and institutional quality. At the time of this article’s publication, they were affiliated with the College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CSEQ), the survey that served as the research content for their article. Despite not being librarians, or perhaps because they aren’t librarians, Kuh and Gonyea offer a unique, valuable, and insightful contribution to literature of librarianship. It’s a rare treat to see oneself from another perspective, particularly when the perspective is well conceived, intentioned, researched, and written. We can all use a little help from our friends in the academy, and Kuh and Gonyea strike exactly the right tone. They don’t pretend to be librarians, and they don’t shout from on high or apologize for any lack of librarianesque perspective. They share what they’ve learned from their research as teammates and partners in the pursuit of success for all students. This is part of what makes their contribution to College and Research Libraries so special and why their article was so well received in 2003 as well as relevant to our profession today, more than a decade later. Throughout their article, Kuh and Gonyea’s treatment of academic libraries is considerate and complimentary. They are careful to state that “the library is the physical manifestation of the core values and activities of academic life” (359), and that “the library’s central role in the academic community is unquestioned” (359). They write that “it is almost heretical to ask...but just what does the library contribute to student learning?” (359). Today, the library’s place in the academy is often questioned, and dem-