Betty Sue Jessup Library at PVCC
The Betty Sue Jessup Library serves staff, professors, and students of the Piedmont Virginia Community College campus in Charlottesville, Virginia. It has a strong digital presence through PVCC’s student services website. Online users can chat with a librarian 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The library’s homepage features several different kinds of search bars—each one is separated by task (unlike ODU’s library, which has one search bar with multiple tabs). If we take the layout of the homepage as a map for how to find resources, then PVCC’s library suggests its users start by looking for ebooks—then for physical books—then for articles—and finally, for databases or other reference materials.
A menu on the left-hand side of the homepage contains links to other pages: library policies, Interlibrary Loan requests, a faculty and staff page, and different library programs (book recommendations and a laptop-lending service, for example). From this menu, students can also search for available meeting rooms and reserve them in the library using an interactive map of the floor plan. The floor plan includes a lot of meeting rooms and work/study spaces. There’s a library classroom and a reading room. But according to the floor plan, there are only four long shelves dedicated to the library’s circulating collection. To me, this indicates that most people are using the library for its access to ebooks and articles—or access to librarians who can help with research day and night.
It could also be an indication that the library’s mission is to provide access to knowledge outside the walls of the classroom or college—both in the sense of giving users access to e-learning materials but also in the sense that they are spaces for students to come together to share or develop knowledge. According to Rubin and Rubin (2020):
“…changes in academic libraries reflected corresponding changes in classroom pedagogy, including greater emphasis on active learning and cooperative or collaborative learning in groups, mainly stemming from increased reliance on digital resources” (p. 171).
The layout of the PVCC library definitely privileges in-person meeting spaces of different kinds; acknowledging that learning is collaborative and that what collaboration looks like might vary from course to course and require different support spaces as a result.
From a faculty perspective, according to Rubin and Rubin (2020):
“Community colleges devote almost all their energies to teaching and continuing education, and their collections and services reflect this emphasis. Insofar as a community college expects research and publication from its faculty, the library provides access to appropriate research resources, but the bulk of the funding supports teaching” (p.170).
This seems true of PVCC’s library, given the information on its website titled “For faculty & staff.” The first section details the qualifications PVCC librarians have—and why that makes them ideal partners in the classroom. There are links to request an embedded librarian in a Canvas course as well as to request a librarian to deliver sessions on information literacy to in-person courses.
The mission of this library to provide “dynamic, point-of-need services from information experts and quality collections that equip students with the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to be successful lifelong learners” (Piedmont Virginia Community College, n.d., Library Policies section) is evident from their website. However, any explicit references to diversity, equity, or inclusion seem to be missing. I can’t tell from the site what accommodations are available for the visually impaired or for those with different reading or language abilities. I can’t tell how physically accessible the space is without going in person. And I don’t see any references to ways that the library supports traditionally marginalized communities.
REFERENCES
Piedmont Virginia Community College. (n.d.). Betty Sue Jessup Library.
https://www.pvcc.edu/student-services/library
Piedmont Virginia Community College. (n.d.). Rm. 721, A [Photograph]. Group Study Rooms. https://libcal.pvcc.edu/space/118593
Rubin, R. E., and Rubin, R. G. (2020). Foundations of library and information science (5th ed.).
ALA Neal-Schuman.
It does sound like the physical collection of the Betty Sue Jessup Library at PVCC is not very large if it is contained on 4 shelves. I wonder are there other libraries devoted to different departments on campus? I appreciate that they are taking into consideration the different types of learners they have as far as what types of spaces they will need for in person work in the library. It also sounds like they’re accommodating their online students by having a librarian embed option into a Canvas course. That’s the first mention of any of the other academic libraries that I’ve read about using Canvas to help their patrons. I wonder what that service might look like on Canvas.
It’s great that they have an online chat 24/7! I wonder who ends up staffing the night shift? It makes sense for a college, with so many students pulling all-nighters before assignments are due. The interactive floor plan map looks extremely helpful. I’m surprised there’s so little space dedicated to the circulating collection – maybe they didn’t put higher floors on the map because the site is mainly meant for booking study areas? It’s great how you brought in the Rubin and Rubin text, especially discussing community colleges in particular. Great post!
I can’t believe access to a librarian 24/7! It is interesting that it doesn’t have many books but it is also indicative of a library that students are using to write research papers and looking for journal articles. I am glad that you visited a community college library it is amazing to see the contrasts between it and other academic libraries that are so much larger.
The library 24/7 is standard with the 23 Community colleges within the Virginia Community College System with a standard turnaround time of 24 hours for a response not that there is an actual person online around the clock to answer. As the Community Colleges are promoting college everywhere I am not surprised by the physical collection being so small either as the goal has been to promote online learning going forward recovering from the COVID pandemic. Those students needing physical books that are not available have the option of using the Interlibrary Loan service available. Now I will say I am surprised by the lack of diversity and inclusion on its campus website being visible as the 23 Community colleges are supposed to have the same mission and goal. Thanks for sharing.
I would have thought the library was much bigger being that it was in Charlottesville. I like the 24/7 chat line for research help.
Thanks for giving incite on a community college library. I which there was more inclusion for diversity.
The Betty Sue Jessup Library should include equality, diversity, and inclusion in its mission as they are important aspects to have, even at an academic library. I can’t believe that the PVCC library only has four shelves of books, based on the floor plan. I would think that they would have more than that. The Central Virginia Community College library has more printed resources than PVCC. This shows how students rely more on digital resources than printed ones.