Building A Community of Belonging: Princeton's Personal Librarian Program
Type of Presentation
Individual paper/presentation
Conference Strand
Outreach and Partnership
Target Audience
Higher Education
Second Target Audience
Other
Relevant for all librarians/library staff
Location
Ballroom B
Relevance
Princeton's Personal Librarian Program, which pairs every single undergraduate with a member of the Library staff for the duration of their college careers, reaches every student with the offer of personalized research support. The consultations arising from these connections teach students how to conduct research and evaluate sources, utilize the Library's wealth of primary and secondary resources, and efficiently navigate the physical and digital collections.
Proposal
Princeton's Personal Librarian Program launched in 2017 after a similar program at Yale inspired Welber and a colleague to bring this outreach model to their campus. Princeton’s Library administration saw the program’s potential to meaningfully engage and support undergraduates at Princeton; building on Yale’s model, Welber found original ways to tailor the program to respond to the needs of Princeton’s students and library colleagues. The program began by randomly pairing each undergraduate with a member of the library staff for all four years, and after gaining the attention of key campus partners, began to develop in exciting and unexpected ways.
After an end of semester Library support event held under the auspices of the Personal Librarian Program, the Dean of Student Services took notice and reached out to request a dedicated Personal Librarian for several athletic teams needing extra support. Beginning with a pilot for the varsity football team, the idea proved so successful that we have started matching an increasing number of students with librarians by “identity cohorts” including the Freshman Scholars Institute, which supports first-generation/low-income students. And, as a result of word of mouth advertising by the football team and its coaches, we have since added many more athletic teams. We have found that assigning students a personal librarian in this way strengthens the efficacy of the program through connections among cohort members and their adult support system (mentors, leaders, coaches). This shift in emphasis has also strengthened the DEI aspect of the program, contributing to the culture of support and belonging that the library strives to provide.
Welber will talk through the details of implementation, including technical/back end enhancements, and will also pull back the curtain on the numerous pitfalls encountered along the way. Asking for help at university libraries can be intimidating for many students; this presentation will highlight the uniquely supportive role of Personal Librarians to address this and provide undergraduates with welcoming points of connection.
Short Description
Princeton’s Personal Librarian Program, modeled after a similar program at Yale, pairs each undergraduate with a member of the Library staff for all four years. This robust outreach, after gaining the attention of key campus partners, has grown in exciting and unexpected ways. Welber will present details of the Program’s implementation, describing not only successes but also the numerous pitfalls encountered along the way.
Keywords
information literacy, campus outreach, inclusion, belonging, DEI, academic support
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Welber, Audrey B., "Building A Community of Belonging: Princeton's Personal Librarian Program" (2025). Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy. 24.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gaintlit/2025/2025/24
Building A Community of Belonging: Princeton's Personal Librarian Program
Ballroom B
Princeton's Personal Librarian Program launched in 2017 after a similar program at Yale inspired Welber and a colleague to bring this outreach model to their campus. Princeton’s Library administration saw the program’s potential to meaningfully engage and support undergraduates at Princeton; building on Yale’s model, Welber found original ways to tailor the program to respond to the needs of Princeton’s students and library colleagues. The program began by randomly pairing each undergraduate with a member of the library staff for all four years, and after gaining the attention of key campus partners, began to develop in exciting and unexpected ways.
After an end of semester Library support event held under the auspices of the Personal Librarian Program, the Dean of Student Services took notice and reached out to request a dedicated Personal Librarian for several athletic teams needing extra support. Beginning with a pilot for the varsity football team, the idea proved so successful that we have started matching an increasing number of students with librarians by “identity cohorts” including the Freshman Scholars Institute, which supports first-generation/low-income students. And, as a result of word of mouth advertising by the football team and its coaches, we have since added many more athletic teams. We have found that assigning students a personal librarian in this way strengthens the efficacy of the program through connections among cohort members and their adult support system (mentors, leaders, coaches). This shift in emphasis has also strengthened the DEI aspect of the program, contributing to the culture of support and belonging that the library strives to provide.
Welber will talk through the details of implementation, including technical/back end enhancements, and will also pull back the curtain on the numerous pitfalls encountered along the way. Asking for help at university libraries can be intimidating for many students; this presentation will highlight the uniquely supportive role of Personal Librarians to address this and provide undergraduates with welcoming points of connection.
