Credo Releases Free First Year Experience (FYE) eGuide and Contest Announcements

Credo releases today the final publication of The Credo FYE Guide: Practices for Enhancing Instruction, an interactive e-guide designed to help academic librarians supporting the first year experience.

Through trends overviews, case studies, activity guides, lesson plans, and more, the guide provides extensive resources for libraries, whether starting an FYE initiative from scratch or making tweaks to existing programs. In conjunction with the release of the e-Guide, Credo announces two contests with grand prizes totaling $4,000 to recognize librarians making the greatest impact with their first-year students.

The Credo FYE Guide Activity Contest invites librarians to implement ideas from the guide during the Fall 2018 semester for a chance to win $1,000 towards travel and registration to 2019 The Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Conference in Cleveland, Ohio. Credo is also accepting nominations for the second annual FYE Innovation Awards. In partnership with the Kelvin Smith Library of Case Western Reserve University, Credo sponsors the contest to award one library and one librarian $1,500 each.  The awards will be presented at the ACRL Conference in April2019.

With sections authored by high-profile librarians including Fresno State’s Raymond Pun, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, and others, The Credo FYE Guide offers best practices and resources relating to Orientation, Collaboration, Information Literacy, Assessment, and Student Engagement. In addition to summaries of current trends and instructions detailing how to orchestrate programming, the guide also provides links to webinar recordings, open access tools, and relevant scholarly publications.

“We want to give librarians a practical resource, offering step-by-step instructions for successful FYE programming,” said Raymond Pun. “Launching an FYE initiative can be daunting, so we try to break everything down into manageable pieces and include as many supporting tools as possible.”

“This guide is a great resource for academic libraries looking for new ideas on how to better serve first-year students at their colleges, including more specialized populations like international or transfer students,” said Michael Habata, a librarian at Los Angeles Pierce College. “There are examples of strategies and techniques from multiple libraries of innovative techniques they have employed.”

First-year experience initiatives are shown to have a profound impact on student success, ranging from persistence to GPA levels, and to graduation rates. Understanding the critical role libraries play in cultivating relationships with students and outfitting them with essential information skills, Credo has worked extensively to combine technology, reference content, and instructional materials to support librarians in their efforts. Credo has also worked to create spaces where librarians can see what their peers are doing, share best practices, and build upon successes. The guide is an extension of these endeavors, and as libraries put its ideas into practice this fall, the FYE Guide Activity Contest will serve as an exciting representation of librarians at the forefront of first-year experience programming.

The Credo FYE Guide is free for all interested librarians and can be downloaded here. View FYE Guide Activity Contest Rules and details here. To stay abreast of current and developing trends, subscribe to The Credo Blog, where Raymond Pun regularly shares insights and profiles from the first year experienced librarians around the country.