Empowering Students Through Academic Resources: Strategies for Marketing Library Tools in a Rapidly Changing Educational Landscape

Abstract

Library attendance has dropped by 50% over the past decade, 1 highlighting a signifi-
cant shift in how students engage with and learn about academic resources. Academic
librarians have always adapted to change, but today’s pace—driven by advancements in
technology and artificial intelligence—demands even quicker pivots. One key challenge
is ensuring students have visibility of available tools, such as Libby or Kanopy, and can
effectively use them while demonstrating responsible digital citizenship. They won’t use
tools if they don’t know about them. Although technology has transformed the learning
landscape, outreach strategies to students have largely remained stagnant.
Circumstances aren’t all that different from the efforts to combat “fake news” in the mid-
2010s. Librarians educated students on how to combat and vet sources while learning how
to dig through a complex range of information. Since then, librarians’ focus has expanded to
educating students on new technologies, which is especially important since digital materials
make up 98.4% of library circulation