Student success

Student savings

• Library course materials were embedded in: 3460 sections
• Number of items* reached:
  • Number of students reached: 98567
  • *including multi-use e-books, open textbooks, and licensed journal articles
• If every student took advantage of these resources, the potential savings would have been $7,322,765 in FY24
• TARGETING TEXTBOOKS: In the LEAD 1961 class (500 students in 30 sections) alone, there was a potential savings of $37,500 per semester for students.

Students helping students

Our Peer Research Consultants (PRCs) are trained students who help their peers with research assignments, from finding a topic and asking research questions, to discovering relevant, scholarly sources, to best research practices.

All told, PRCs:

• Interacted with over 1500 students, including:
  • 285 one-on-one research consultations
  • Helping students with research assignments in 71 different courses
  • Providing feedback to 360 first-year writing students

Envisioning the future at the Toaster Innovation Hub

From harnessing the power of high-altitude winds to safely extracting blood clots from the heart’s arteries, U of M students showcased their vision of the future at the 12th annual Founder’s Day, co-hosted by the Libraries’ Toaster Innovation Hub and the Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship in the Carlson School of Management.

The Toaster has been fostering creativity and entrepreneurship all year round since its inception in 2020, offering students free access to resources including a makerspace, media production equipment, meeting spaces, and more.

Prioritizing student wellbeing with Boynton Health

Boynton’s Pet Away Worry and Stress (PAWS) program celebrated its 10th anniversary, bringing hundreds of students to Wilson Library to de-stress — and, of course, to pet plenty of happy dogs. The program has had over 11,000 annual visits since its inception in 2013, and is free and open to anyone in the University community. Wilson Library is also home to Boynton’s Mental Health Clinic, located on the fourth floor.

Advancing medical education through active learning

Staff from the Wangensteen Historical Library of Biology and Medicine partnered with medical school faculty to offer active learning sessions to first year medical students. Topics ranged from the history of tuberculosis and reproductive healthcare to the impact of urban infrastructure on healthcare equity. These sessions used specific historical moments as case studies to approach challenging issues, such as race and economic status, in the contemporary healthcare landscape.

Instruction, library guides, and tutorials

Number of classes where staff provided instructions and total number of students reached

• 1,164 class sessions (multiple visits to some of the classes)
• 28,986 students (each student counted once; typically, we double count for multiple sessions)

The Libraries also offer online guides and tutorials to help students in their coursework and research.

• Total views for library guides: 1,699 guides, 68,2695 views
• Total views for online tutorials: 10,7219

Data Management Boot Camp

Each year, the Libraries hosts an annual Data Management Boot Camp for early-stage graduate students conducting a major research project for the first time. Topics range from introductory skills to specific tool-based workshops on citation managers, backup workflows, the future of data sharing, and publishing data. Last fall, 109 people attended from 16 colleges and two campuses across the University.