Brian Mathews at Ubiquitous Librarian has a really interesting post about what male and female students expect and want to find in a newsletter put out by their library. Here is his list of responses:
Males
- fun stuff, funny and interesting facts, things that apply to college students
- events on campus/around Atlanta, study tips, facts
- cool books or websites
- websites for students, info on library, good books, resources
- new things on campus, events, good books
- cool websites, ideas for things to do on campus and in library
- jokes, word teasers, info about tech, website resources for students
- funny facts, happenings around tech, info on library
Females
- campus info
- interesting facts about tech, events at the library
- events on campus, interesting facts, jokes
- good books, events on campus, spotlight an organization
- events in Atlanta, events sponsored by tech groups, info on the library
- things going on at library, facts people don’t know about the library
- advice, events on campus, info about the library
- map of library, where you can find certain things within library, humor
- cool books or magazines, people’s opinions, jokes, interesting facts
- stuff about tech
Although I am not sure how often a print newsletter would be picked up by students outside of the library doors, I do think this list can help in deciding what kinds of news announcements to post on the webpage/blog and what updates could be tweeted or txted to students.
I expected the large amount of responses about highlighting little-known services or cool books but it surprised me how much technology news was mentioned. Some librarians are more tech-saavy than their users but I am surprised that this seems to be an expectation: “libraries should help users learn technology as well as research skills.”
I also noted how often general campus news came up. Students still feel like we are a window to campus life. We should keep it that way.
Posted by Gerrit 
