Library Assessment Plan

Library outreach is crucial to meeting the Library Mission of fostering "lifelong intellectual growth, discovery, and self-fulfillment by providing all members of Pace University and the surrounding community with versatile access to needed information resources, research assistance, and guidance in developing skills for locating, evaluating and integrating information to solve challenges and fully participate in the global community as informed citizens."  

In order to provide resources, assistance and guidance to the Pace community, we must ensure that members of the community are aware of all that the Library can offer.  To that end we conduct outreach in many ways, especially through engaging in-person events including therapy dog visits, monthly game nights, Toast Day each semester, letter writing parties, and stress relief activities during finals.  Through all these events and initiatives we aim to help all students feel connected to the library, especially to library staff.

Some of the ongoing projects that demonstrate this includes:

Developing partnerships with student clubs such as Nature, Tabletop, Pride, WPAW to collaborate on community building events such as semester hosted murder mystery events, plant propagation/distribution events, and monthly student board game nights.  These collaborative events help the community to see the library not only as an academic space but one that can be re-envisioned as a unique and sometimes magical social space.  Events like the anti-prom and the murder mystery events take place after the library has closed on Saturday nights which further maximizes our facilities and promotes important weekend life prioritization on the Pleasantville campus.  The anti-prom event partnership with Pride also garnered many responses on social media as the favorite event of the year from Pride club members.  The Mortola Library murder mysteries have also only continued to gain in popularity and have increased from once per year to occuring each semester due to popular demand.  After winning the 2019 Pleasantville campus event of the year, this collaborative event only continue to gain in popularity and requests for more of them have only increased.

Partnerships with campus departments such as Student Engagement has facilitated the establishment and development of a Commuter Lounge in the Mortola Library. In 2024/25, this collaborative project was the recipient of the 2024/25 President’s Award for Outstanding Team Contribution. The project created a much needed home for commuter students on the Pleasantville campus which naturally fit within the library building.  The collaboration with the commuter students continues to develop as further infrastructure and needs are to fruition such as the new charging lockers in the space as well as the addition of sink/microwave/refrigerator needs.

The library events and outreach also fosters campus traditions through unique, long standing events like "Toast Day" in the Mortola Library to celebrate the end of the semester with free toast in the library lobby, This is an event students look forward to and would show appreciation through comments to include, "This is my favorite day of the year!"  We continue to keep the event fresh and unique by adding in elements such as international toast toppings and experimental toast toppings.

The library led Chinatown dumpling tours that occurs several times each fall engages our students with their surroundings in support of experiential learning efforts at Pace.  The 2 hour long tours take students/staff from Pace into Chinatown exploring many historical and current issues/sites that impacts our neighborhood including immigration, the impact of jails within communities, and the historical changes that our neighborhood has seen throughout its history.  The tours received widespread positive feedback with waiting lists for them when they are offered. They offer a wonderful introduction to Pace students on the community in which they now call home...all while eating some wonderful dumplings!

The library has been the center for facilitating therapy dog visits to campus for over a decade.  The events used to only occur during exams but now have expanded to include alternating week visits by a therapy dog team that has been assigned to us for 4 years.  Students offer consistently positive feedback on the experience that they have with therapy dogs and their owners.  Many students become regulars at therapy dog events and attend each one that is scheduled forming bonds with both the dog and owner.  Whether through these long standing bonds or during a brief one-off interactions, the impact that is displayed and expressed through positive comments, quiet time between student and dog, or even occasional tears of joy make these events a very important part of our campus culture.

Outreach and Event Tracking: 

Senior administration implemented a LibWizard form to track the number of outreach events taking place on each campus and numbers of attendees. Staff are also encouraged to use the general LibWizard library feedback form to collect feedback from each outreach event.

First Year Personal Library Outreach:

First offered in Spring 2021 and coordinated by the First Year Outreach Services Librarian in the Instructional Services department - the "Personal Library Outreach" program is focused on first-year students in both NYC and Pleasantville. The program began as a series of emails sent to first-year students in the spring semester. We purposefully conduct this program in the spring semester, as many supports for first-year students end in the fall semester. The list of first-year students was distributed to a team of library staff and each team member sent the monthly message to their list and offered to be their students’ “Personal Library Support” person. Emails covered topics such as setting up research consultations, citation help, library programming, and other library resources and services. In Spring 2024 we linked from the emails to library information in a web-based newsletter and tracked Open rates of the newsletters. Based on low response rates to the emails and low Open rates of the web-based newsletters, in Spring 2025 we began piloting a new program where door hangers are distributed to all residential first-year students, and emails are sent to commuter first-year students.