Engaging students with creative library staff: the game’s afoot!

Engaging with students in a higher education setting can be difficult at the best of times. With many competing demands on their time and attention, with faculties filling courses such that there is little room for manoeuvre with what is sometimes seen as ‘additional’ library skills, and with increasing demands on services since the introduction of fees, students will have their own priorities and sense of what’s important or interesting. Factor in the traditional view of libraries and library skills being dull, or at the very least staid, and it might be thought that we’re wasting our time even attempting to interact with students in an engaging manner. We would disagree however and argue that promoting awareness of the Library’s resources and services is ever more important. Sukovic, Litting and England (2011) go so far as to argue that we can only engage through “serious play”.