Wednesday, February 24, 2021 by Kellie Karim
Hi Warriors!
I hope that you had a chance to have a ‘Blind Date with a Book’ or participate in the writing contest this week! I also hope that you participated in the activity my coworkers and I created for you – The Library Love Services Fair!
As a Library Ambassador, my coworkers and I are responsible for helping plan, promote and run student engagement activities. While you may have seen our booths at libraries in the past, you may not know very much about all the planning and organizing that goes on behind the scenes! Today I’d like to briefly share with you how my coworkers and I organized the Library Love Services Fair and share a bit about why we run these events.
Over the Spring term 2020, Library Ambassadors and Ashan the past Student Engagement and Communications co-op student, created an amazing interactive Google Map that provided information about library services and that had an embedded activity. Wanting to recreate this idea with a new activity, my team members and I came up with the idea of doing a Valentine’s Day-themed word scramble. Lots of what we do at the library is centered around creating activities that you not only want to do but that act as a break from schoolwork while still incorporating information about the library and student services.
Take a look at the Google Map here in case you missed it this week.
When planning activities, we answer these three questions:
- What do we want to do?
- Who do we need help from?
- What actions need to be taken?
Together we decided that we wanted to do a word scramble contest and embed the hidden letters within the map made. After emailing the services included on the map to make sure their information and photos were up to date, we ‘hid’ our word scramble letters within the service profiles. We want you to play the game and win the prize, but we also want you to read through the important information about how the services can help you!
As campus is currently closed, we marketed our event on social media and reached out to other campus clubs to ask them to share information about the event. I made a graphic on Canva and after a few edits, we organized where and when we would begin marketing the event. Following our Instagram page @uwlibrary is a great way to get information about what events are being offered and up-to-date information about library hours and services!
I hope that you had a chance to participate in at least one activity this week, or that you’ll consider participating in future events. The library team works hard to create activities we think you’ll like, with prizes you’ll want to win, and that provide you information that could help you have a better academic term.
- Alyson
