 Good afternoon. I'm Scott Warren, the Associate Dean for Research Excellence at the Syracuse University Libraries. Before we begin our presentation, I would like to, we would like to acknowledge with respect the Onondaga Nation, Firekeepers of the Haudenosaunee, the Indigenous Peoples on whose ancestral land Syracuse University now stands. Next slide please. Next slide please. As you can see, our project was called Distinct Academic Learning Communities at Syracuse University Libraries. And the rest of the team was Stephanie McReynolds, Librarian for Business Management and Entrepreneurship, who was our project lead, Terry Ruth Carrier, our Executive Director of Operational Excellence, and Peter Verheyen, our Research and Emerging Issues Analyst Librarian. Next slide. Our presentation will have five parts. All flow from our decision to examine what we termed distinct academic learning communities that are embedded within academic libraries. We wanted to see if we could define ways of measuring the impact both from the libraries on the communities, as well as from the communities on the libraries, and also see if there were any metrics we could ascertain that would be generalizable to other ARL libraries. Next slide please. Our first step was to define what we meant by academic learning communities as the object of our space study. As you can see, several salient dimensions emerged that we thought must be satisfied. Next slide please. We determined that we had three such communities here in Burd Library. Burd Library is the main library at Syracuse University. All three were established and or moved to library locations from between 2016 to 2019. Though they varied by mission, space allocated, number of students served, etc., things like that, all three do share a focus on high engagement, self-selection, and the other dimensions that were part of our description of academic learning communities, the criteria we outlined in our definition. All three also have a formal director, and the launch pad is organizationally part of the libraries, though the other two are part of different campus units. Particularly critical to a community being located within the libraries is that participation is not limited to any one academic discipline. That's something that also clearly emerged during our research. Next slide please. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm going to try to show you before and after shots of what these spaces looked like to make them a little bit more real and give a sense of what the communities actually look like and how they function within the library. Next slide please. I should say class. Class is the academic student support service. So class before was just low study space on our lower floor. Class after, it's still on our lower floor, and though it looks a little bit similar, if you look in the background you can see more glass and sort of space definition. Next slide please. Source space before, the source is our undergraduate research center, and it was stack space before. After the stacks were removed, there was a very brief period during which it was student, generic student study space. And then it transformed, next slide please, to what you see now, which is again space with a couple of offices, private consultation room, and space for meetings that focuses again on undergraduate research. Next slide please. The Launchpad is our entrepreneurship and innovation service point and is located on our first floor bird library. It was generic study space before and then afterwards. Next slide please. It also has the similar glass walled glass walls used to define it as a space. We used glass walls repeatedly because they allow for quicker and less costly renovation as well as helping drive community visibility. And now, next slide over to Stephanie. Thanks, Scott. Our research was guided by three objectives. First to explore the relationship between the library spaces and key community attributes, such as contributing to academic success, fostering engaged community, and encouraging innovative research and creative thinking and problem solving. Second to determine how the communities impact the library spaces, services, staffing, collections, and budget. And with our third objective, we sought to identify both quantitative and qualitative methods and metrics that would demonstrate the reciprocal impact of the libraries and the communities. We hope this would be useful to ARL if it chooses to develop measures for assessing the reciprocal impact of member libraries and similar communities or other units in their libraries. Next slide please. So we took a holistic approach by exploring impact from multiple perspectives, that of community directors, community participants, the library's dean, and library's employees. First we surveyed the ARL assess lists served to gather peer perceptions about traditionally non-library units or other campus units located in their libraries. We also surveyed student participants and recent alums of each of the three communities to gain insight into their perception and use of community space as well as library spaces, services, and resources. To better understand the impact of the communities on the libraries from the perspective of library's employees, we surveyed the library staff about their perception of an interaction with the communities. Thanks to ARL and IMLS subgrants, we encouraged participation in the student and employee surveys by offering respondents the chance to win gift cards and raffles. Next slide please. We conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with each of the three community directors and with the library's dean. Thanks to guidance from ARL social scientist consultant Margaret Roller, the director interviews were analyzed using a form of interpretive phenomenological analysis where the focus is on participants' lived experiences and meaning-making in a particular context. The aim of the analysis is to conceptualize intended meanings and derive overarching themes. Analyzing the director's interviews using this process provided meaningful insight into their perspectives. We analyzed the dean interviews to gain insight into his perspective on the communities and their impact as well as to contextualize the themes identified in the director interviews. And now Peter will share a few of our findings. Next slide please. Thank you Stephanie. In the course of our literature review, we learned that these kinds of communities and communities and services are not new to libraries and to a large extent are projected in various reports and presentations to represent one aspect of the future of libraries. Libraries have long been seen as the heart of our campuses in part because of their culture that welcomes all disciplines. This was reflected in the membership of the communities and the foci of their activities that really spanned all of campus. Before COVID we saw our gate counts increasing year over year only to see them drop to almost zero as usage of resources and community activities shifted online. While that worked and the communities continued to function, all involved noted the loss of connectedness that comes with face-to-face activities. Within the libraries, our communities are located in prime highly visible areas. The visible success of these communities is appealing to others. And analyzing the user level data, we were able to compare usage between students overall and members of the communities. While not significantly higher, it is of interest and could merit further evaluation and outreach activities. Next slide, please. With the exception of the source, all of Syracuse's communities are located in what was and to a large degree still is prime open study and collaboration space for students. While these clearly welcome and participate in these communities, they also point out the loss of this open space at the same time pointing to a need for balance between the communities and their needs. We also learned from those that we studied that there needs to be a connection to the library's mission and vice versa. The community should make sense. This helps integrate them into the culture of the libraries and can reduce perceptions of their being tenants, units that could or should be elsewhere but happen to be here. These connections with the communities and campus need to be articulated in the library's overall strategic plan. And along with connecting to the mission of the libraries, it is important to connect with and listen to the staff as these will have roles in collaborating with and providing services to the communities and their members. We also need to explain how and why of these communities, especially if there are ongoing concerns around office meeting and instructional spaces. Next slide, please. Being able to measure the impact of the communities is important to identify the resources needed to support them as well as the library's overall. Measuring how library spaces facilitate innovative research, creative thinking and problem solving in a sustained way is challenging and requires data from across campus as well as qualitative research methods. But we also have other ways to measure the impact on the libraries, some of which are already collected by ARL at a higher level. By going to a more granular level, we can show at least some of the impact. As part of the campus ecosystem, recognition of the libraries as partners can earn a lot of goodwill and support for other needs beyond these communities. This is not something to be undervalued. Stephanie, and next slide. Thanks, Peter. So we learned a lot throughout this project and would like to share a few tips for other library research teams. Carefully consider the expertise of your team before you begin. Since our team did not have expertise in qualitative research, we needed to develop a basic understanding of relevant methodologies and processes. This is a really good growth opportunity and what we learned will inform future projects. But it was also challenging at times, especially given already stretched resources during a global pandemic. Which brings me to another point. Even basic qualitative research takes time. And if a team is new to research methodologies and processes, such as gaining IRB approval and working with the office of sponsored programs, additional time should be built into the project timeline. Another tip is to try not to be overly ambitious. If this type of research is new to your team, consider trying just one method at a time on a smaller project to see how it goes. We conducted multiple interviews and created three extensive surveys. While that might not seem like much, even that level was time intensive. Based on our experience running a sustainable qualitative research program is going to be challenging if built upon part-time contributions from staff who are not trained in the appropriate research methodologies. So if a library were to commit to undertaking this type of research long-term, we would recommend fully investing in the necessary staffing, expertise, and skills development. So thanks so much to ARL for this opportunity and we welcome your questions during the Q&A.