Digital Literacy

By Avery Klauke, Undergraduate Library Fellow (2022-23)

When I tell people I work in Doe Library, it is sometimes followed by, “Is that the big building people take grad photos in front of?” Although true, it has previously amazed me that some students don’t know more about Doe (or many other libraries). But as I was reflecting on this year, this didn’t come as much of a surprise…

When you enter Berkeley in your first year, there’s often a stigma around the libraries. They’re big, quiet, and intimidating. Their sole purpose is to be a place where students can cram for finals or get in a quick nap between classes. And most of the time, this stigma doesn’t go away in the years you’re here. That was the goal for the library fellows this year. To make strides in painting the libraries as a place of collaboration, creativity, and fun.

The first thing the research fellows got to do this semester was teach a Research 101 Workshop. This workshop was our way of merging our 1-1 research consultations with the ways Research 101 is traditionally taught. And between presenting all of the material well to trying to keep everyone engaged and collaborative, it was no easy feat. But we thought that if students could see their peers presenting, it would help our goal of making the library less menacing of a place. Personally, being able to field questions and work together with the rest of the research fellows made this experience my personal favorite. 

Another project we did this semester was coined the “Bancroft User Experience Project”. Unlike the other projects this year, I didn’t have to put myself into the shoes of a new student because I too had almost no experience with the Bancroft Library. Our goal was to identify advantages and “pain points” when requesting a special collection item. One of my conclusions from this project was that despite the employees and librarians in Bancroft being so helpful and understanding, there’s still an intimidation factor that turns away most undergraduates before they even enter the front door. If you’re a new student reading this- don’t believe what people say about Bancroft being an exclusive library! If you can get over this hurdle, you’ll be exposed to some of the most extensive collections on campus!

Although the goal for this year was to give back to the Berkeley student body, I cannot say that I didn’t experience any personal gain. This year’s fellows and mentors provided me with the most enjoyable space to spend my afternoons. I hope to continue our goal of making the library more welcoming to students, and I can’t wait to see what we accomplish next year!

By Sofia Hernandez, Undergraduate Library Fellow (2022-23)

A highlight of my ULF experience this semester was being able to bring our peer-to-peer consultation experience outside of Doe 190 and into a different setting: Doe 223! Last semester, I learned a lot about hosting peer-to-peer consultations and meeting the needs of a wide variety of learners. Assuming the role of a “mentor” to my peers while simultaneously being an undergraduate student myself gave me unique insight into the research consultation experience: it is daunting to ask for help, but that fear slowly dissipates as you work alongside someone who looks just like you and is on the same educational journey as you are! I loved getting to know our consultees and the wide-ranged string of research ideas they brought us to untangle together, therefore, I was delighted to learn that this semester would bring in the opportunity for the Research fellows to host a “Research 101” workshop of our own in the library classroom (infamous and aforementioned Doe 223) on the second floor–talk about moving up in the world!

As a returning fellow, I’ve attended a couple of Research 101’s in my time; all of them uniquely wonderful and engaging. The rotating teams of librarians who host these workshops have a seemingly natural “synergy” to their presentations and teaching styles, a quality I greatly admire as an aspiring librarian myself, so the idea of hosting a workshop for students, by students, made me feel equal parts nervous and excited. 

After some tentative scheduling and planning, a date was set: March 16. The lead up to that Thursday was short lived (as was the rest of the spring semester…where did the time go?!). Alongside two of the three other Research fellows, our consultation-free days were spent going over changes we’d like to see in the current workshop module. We played around with the order of information, reworded text-heavy slides with student-friendly language, and most importantly: bonded and got to know one another the more time we spent together tinkering with our Google slides. 

The day of our presentation rapidly crept up on us, and though I was nervous beforehand (and admittedly during), our workshop ran quite smoothly. Hosting a research workshop was no different than hosting a consultation, plus, I had the support of two awesome Research fellows beside me who I could rely on to take the reins and fill in for spots or details I missed. Everything did not fall solely on one person–a feat unknown to many who have experienced college group projects. Hosting Research 101 allowed me to exercise the skills I have been learning in our consultations (for instance, how to be flexible and open to throwing “the rule book” out when things don’t go as planned) and apply them to a larger and more collaborative scale.

As I close out my junior year at Cal, I am excited and eagerly anticipating returning to the fellowship in the Fall and seeing what new opportunities and doors the fellows and I can open together.

By Sofia Hernandez, Undergraduate Library Fellow (2022-23)

As a returning fellow, the idea of hosting an in-person event centered around assisting peers in their research process had been circulating around our brainstorming sessions for some time, but ultimately, our project for the year changed its course and the event did not end up coming into fruition. Upon returning to the fellowship program and joining this year’s Research cohort, I was delighted and surprised to discover that we would begin to serve as formal library peer advisors, with official appointments on the library’s “LibCal” and a feature on the library’s homepage!

Amidst the excitement I felt about being a peer advisor, I was also nervous. Last year’s fellowship program was almost entirely online (save for a few in-person reunions for just the fellows and mentors) and very theoretical. We gathered data about current student library employees and made inferences about what changes could be implemented in the library to make it more accessible. This year, we were jumping straight into being the change-makers we had only theorized about! But my nerves didn’t last for very long. During one of our first internship meetings in September, my fellowship partner Avery and I participated in an “Empathy Map” activity where we put our theatrical skills to work and role played as a peer advisor and a consultee (and vice versa). 

The experience was fun and incredibly insightful about our future roles as peer advisors. Avery and I found out we had very different academic concentrations (statistics and economics vs. literature and Spanish). Taking turns roleplaying as if we were running and attending a consultation revealed these differences but we discovered that our different areas of expertise complimented each other quite nicely. Skipping ahead to the end of the semester, we made an excellent duo during our real consultations with our peers! Working together flowed rather smoothly during our real consultations and our different academic backgrounds came in handy when meeting with students of varying academic backgrounds as well!

I’ve learned a lot this semester alone about accessibility within the library through being a fellow and peer advisor. Through the fellowship, I’ve thought critically about the way the library, as an academic institution, has been designed to be confusing to navigate (both online and in-person) which is off-putting for students seeking to use the library’s many resources. As a peer advisor, I’ve also been able to workshop the way I help other students, whose needs and learning styles vary from person to person. I look forward to continuing the fellowship program in the semester to come and continuing to learn alongside my peers about the library and everything it has to offer!