Members Sharing presentation delivered by Sue Marshall at the 2012 BLA conference held in Stirling from 4-6 July.

2. Services for International
Students
– Review at Lanchester Library
Coventry University
Sue Marshall
Subject librarian
Coventry University

3. My role
• Library representative for international
students
• Main contact with the International
Office
• Arrange inductions and tours
• Ensure the library meets the needs of
international students

4. International students – statistics
• 24,655 students
• 3911 are international – non European
(15.8%)
– 1814 Business, Environment & Society
– 1583 Engineering & Computing
• 7612 international including European
(30.9%)
• 174 countries represented

5. International students – by country

6. Services provided before the review
• Library web-page with a glossary of library
terms
• Designated staff member with responsibility
for international students
• Specific induction for international students
• Diversity training for staff
• Run focus groups with international students

7. Why review?
• Ensure we are providing a good service
• Benchmarking
• Find new ideas

8. What we did
• Survey of other university library
websites
• Review of the literature
• Lis-link archives to see findings of
previous investigations
• Consulted SCONUL Guidelines on
international student support

9. What we found - SCONUL Guidelines
• 17 Key concepts
– Some already adopted
– Points to give more thought to
• Managing expectations
• An awareness of varying teaching and learning styles to underpin
information literacy training
• Regular staff development in cross-cultural awareness
• “International students are not a homogeneous group”
• List of ‘Good ideas or special touches’ e.g.
• Recognition of international holidays and festivals
• Multilingual dictionaries and links to online dictionaries
• Employ international student buddies

10. What we found – literature review
• A lot of literature from US, Canada, New Zealand and
Australia
• Most focused on international students from Asia,
India and China – little mention of students from
Africa
• Most were benchmarking exercises and provided
similar kinds of services
• Language not only problem – differences with
teaching, library systems
• Useful literature about teaching international students

11. What we found – website evaluation
• 22 websites evaluated
– 11 universities that participated in the 2010 International
Student Barometer
– Others from Midlands area and featured in reports or
literature
• Some websites were only visible to current students
• Contained links to useful external websites, including
news, language and internal university services
• List of staff who speak other languages
• Ensure our web-pages use plain language

12. What we found – Lis-Link
• Most common services provided were;
• Specific tours for international students
– Bookable
– “on the move” talks to small groups
– Chat sessions
– Catalogue demo and explain how books are found on the shelves
• Support for students on pre-sessional English courses
• Extra help points
• Printed leaflets specifically for international students
• Video
• Web pages including list of library jargon

13. What have we done differently?
• Managing expectations
– Web pages more visible – available before arrival at
university
– Induction material available prior to coming to university
• Developing induction video
• Additional material on webpage including news, language and
study skills
• Staff training session – work of the International Office
• Provided questions for focus group run by the International
Office

14. What next?
• Review ‘special touches’ in SCONUL
Guidelines
• Purchase books about cultural
awareness and teaching international
students
• Displays and exhibitions in the library
relating to culture, film, literature, arts