Telling the First Year Experience: Visual Techniques to Assess First Year Students and Their Information Seeking Behaviours

Who are first year students and how do they use the academic library? This presentation explores how to apply visual assessment techniques to understand more about first year students and their information seeking behaviors. The paper will address the challenges of first year students through three university libraries: two in Korea (Kyung Hee University and Sogang University) and one in the United States and utilize a case study at Fresno State in California to address these issues. The case study explores how these two techniques: photovoice and ethno-mapping can provide new understandings of first year students for any institution to apply in their user experience studies. Ultimately, these techniques will provide more stories and backgrounds of first year students that can lead to new library services and resources to support student success and retention.