Mapping Student Days: Collaborative Ethnography and the Student Experience

Authors

Andrew Asher, Indiana University - Bloomington
Jean Amaral, CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community CollegeFollow
Juliann Couture, University of Colorado Boulder
Barbara Fister, Gustavas Adolphus College
Donna Lanclos, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
M. Sara Lowe, Indiana University, Purdue University Indianapolis
Mariana Regalado, CUNY Brooklyn CollegeFollow
Maura A. Smale, CUNY New York City College of TechnologyFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2017

Abstract

Research on students’ educational experiences demonstrates the importance of a holistic understanding of the complexity of students’ lives in developing library programs, services, and resources that effectively address undergraduate needs. The “A Day in the Life” (ADITL) Project investigated a typical day for over 200 students at eight diverse higher education institutions in the US. Examining the local and individual expressions of student taskscapes – the ensemble of interrelated social activities across time and space – placed each student’s relationship to their library in a larger description of their academic and personal lives. By exploring the whole student experience, this multi-site ethnographic study mapped out a more complete, complex, and diverse cartography of college students’ lives and the library’s place in it.

Comments

This article was originally published in Collaborative Librarianship.

This work was distributed under a Creative Commons No-Commercial Non-Derivatives (CC BY NC ND) License.