Emerging library service provides students with access to equipment and resources
Freshly opened in the fall of 2018, U of G’s McLaughlin Library has developed a new digital resource library located on the second floor of the library, room 267. According to their website’s about page, the studio will give students the equipment and support to “develop the digital literacy and media creation skills [students] need to succeed.”
In the summer, the studio held workshops for instructors to promote its digital literacy initiative. The studio has since launched its pilot program with the interested faculty.
“We are working with approximately 20 instructors on campus, staff from the media studio provide workshops in those classes, then those students come and use the studio to complete their assignments,” Digital Media Librarian Melanie Parlette-Stewart told The Ontarion.
UNIV*1200 first year seminars, language classes, and landscape architecture are some of the disciplines taking part in the pilot project.
Parlette-Stewart said that students not registered in a media studio integrated class can still have access by appointment.
“[Any Guelph student] can book appointments in our filming studio, our editing station, or in our sound booth,” said Parlette-Stewart.
The studio has trained four full-time staff members on site to answer questions and to guide students in their projects, during its business hours: Monday to Thursday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Two of the staff members are from the library and two are co-op students from the library program at Western University.
The studio currently has an editing suite with four workstations, a portrait studio with studio lighting, a sound booth with microphones for recording podcasts, DSLR cameras, Go Pros, and more.
The studio staff is also experimenting with both virtual reality goggles and a 3D printer, and hope to give students access to those resources in the future.
Photo by Alora Griffiths/ The Ontarion