This is the last post in a weeklong series offering a snapshot of what a day in the life of an academic librarian, specifically an outreach librarian and department head, looks like. Here was Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4.
8:30a: Arrived at work and immediately had to troubleshoot an HR issue regarding student hiring. Once I handed that off to one of my team members to manage, I checked in with the campus children’s center to make sure story time was going ahead as planned (the air quality was almost poor enough to cancel their walk to the library).
9:00a: Because of meetings later in the day, I took advantage of my free morning to go to the gym.
10:00a: Cleaned up my email. Reviewed notes from the latest Faculty Senate meeting. Ordered gifts for my graduating senior student employees. Added an ND filter to my camera equipment inventory (pictured above).
11:00a: The leadership of the library met with the leadership of ITS. There were a number of issues to discuss, including cybersecurity of library systems, printing modernization, AI workshops, and digital assets management.
12:30p: Drafted the agenda for my department meeting on Monday and shared that with my team. More email (I always make sure my email inbox is cleared before the weekend). Emailed a student who won a raffle item by filling out a library survey. More coffee.
1:30p: My son was performing at his school today, so I hopped over to watch that.
2:30p: Went through my students’ project boards (we use Trello) and cleaned up their unassigned tasks, archived their completed work, and prioritized their projects for next week. I also scheduled their end of year performance review meetings.
3:30p: Committee on Committees meeting. We’ve mostly completed assigning all faculty volunteers to open committee seats, but there were a handful of unresolved issues to discuss.
4:30p: For the rest of the day (until about 6:30), I did my “Weekly Review.” I’ve discussed this before, but essentially it’s the time I set aside to review all my notes from the week, capture any action items, plan my priorities for the week ahead, and make it possible for me to go into the weekend without any hanging fire.
6:30p: Done and done. That’s it! If you were along for this whole ride, thanks for sticking around. Maybe I’ll do this again sometime.
We’ve made it to Thursday. This is the fourth in a week-long series of “Day in the Life” posts for those considering a career in academic libraries, specifically working in either outreach or managerial positions. Here was Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.
8:30a: Arrive at work. I spent the first 30 minutes trying to film a piece of video content that refused to work the way I envisioned it. This is a sad reality of working in a creative position: sometimes the first four drafts are all complete rubbish. I decided to shelve the idea for a later time.
9:00a: Scheduled three future meetings: one for a committee, one for a photography shoot with a faculty speaker, and one prepping for the launch of a new digital archive.
9:30a: Meeting prep (see next item). Coffee.
10:00a: Our library is currently working with a consultant to do some thinking around stakeholder mapping and strategic communications (internal). Two other department heads and I met to brainstorm all the key players on campus and arrange them according to “low/high power” and “low/high interest.” We then went through a series of questions that helped us to articulate the level of influence those stakeholders have vis-a-vis the library.
12:30p: I had planned to go to a pilates class, but the meeting before ran over so I took a walk around campus instead. Breaked for a lunch. More coffee.
2:00p: Met with two other colleagues to draft a proposal for an upcoming conference.
3:00p: My two student workers arrived for their shift. We spend the first hour brainstorming a [different from the one this morning] video idea: this one to promote the use of study rooms during finals. It took us a good while to figure out the best format, script, and audio.
4:00p: Filmed and edited the video. We’ll post it tomorrow.
5:00p: Left work to pick up my son from school and take-out Thai food. 🤤
6:00p: Spent about 30 minutes catching up on emails and Teams messages I missed throughout the day.
Because of all the creative and brainstorming work today, it took me longer than usual to wind down. I don’t think I fully shut off until almost 7p. This is one of those days when I come home feeling worn out, but not overly productive. However, I know from experience this is all prelude to something better. It just takes time and a few false starts for some good ideas to fully gel.
banner image: view from the campus bluff during my walk
This is the third in a week-long series of “Day in the Life” posts, written primarily for those considering a career in academic libraries—specifically working in either outreach or managerial positions. But also for nosey curious minds. See also: Day 1 and Day 2.
8:30a: Arrive at work (a little more sluggish following yesterday’s faculty social event). I pulled together images that my student graphic designer created to post on Instagram. A “farewell” of sorts for our graduating seniors.
9:00a: Board meeting for the Library Marketing and Communications Group. This is my third year serving on the board, whose primary responsibility is running the annual conference. I am the board secretary, as well as the lead on local arrangements for the conference and co-lead on the program selection committee. This work is part of the “service” obligations that all librarians at my institution are expected to undertake.
10:00a: Follow up meeting with select members of the LMCC Board to discuss the room setup for the conference and the timeline for selecting submitted proposals.
10:30a: Clean up emails.
11:00a: Went to the campus gym. Normally I do this daily, but this week’s been busier than usual so today was the first day getting there. On the way there and back, I checked in with my team staffing the library’s table at a campus event.
12:30p: Followed up with a student employee applicant and interviewed another student for two other potential positions at the library.
1:30p: Lots of little things! Scheduled a meeting with a vendor. Uploaded a recent event recording to the library’s YouTube page. Drafted a blurb for a summer staff event and pop-up exhibit. Reviewed a proposed summer schedule for story time with the campus children’s center. Got coffee.
3:00p: Oversaw the start of “goat yoga,” an annual event that the library hosts during finals every year. Checked in with my student photographer who was capturing the day.
4:00p: By now, my daughter had arrived on campus so I took her to her gymnastics practice. 🤸
4:30p: Came back to campus and worked on setting up drafting files for the library’s Year in Review publication (that is, I set up instructions for all the various authors who contribute content to the document), including word counts, style and content directions, etc.
5:30p: Helped set up for our “Graduation Hat Decorating Party” at the library.
6:00p: Staffed the Grad Hat Party with my team. Toward the end of the event, once we realized there would be left over food, I took a tray of cookies around the library and offered them to students who were studying for finals.
8:30p: Left the office after cleaning up the event.
This is the second in a series of “Day in the Life” posts for those considering a career in academic libraries, specifically working in either outreach or managerial positions (I wear both hats). Here was the post from Day 1. As for Tuesday of this week…
8:30a: Arrive at work. By now, I had received all the photos from last week’s Library Research Awards from the freelance photographer I hired. I reviewed the photos, posted a selection to instagram, selected all those that included the winners and sent those along to them, and archived everything in Box.
9:00a: It’s Feel Good Finals, so we had puppies! I met the crew and helped them set up the dogs in front of the library. While I had planned to go back to my office to work on other projects, I ended up staying for the next hour to take photos and talk with students as they interacted with the dogs.
10:30a: I met with the incoming Faculty Library Representative (FLR) for the Music Department (one of my subject liaison areas). We discussed the expectations of the FLR role and the types of support I can provide to the department, including collection development. We also discussed the possibility of having mini-music performances in the library next year. 🎼
11:30a: Cleaned up my email inbox. Took time for lunch. Then prepped for my 1:1 meeting with my boss (the dean).
1:00p: Biweekly meeting with the dean. We discussed the outcomes of last month’s events, including National Library Week, the Long Night Against Procrastination, and our Senior All-Access Library Tours. We also discussed potential plans for future AI literacy-related external comms. Finally, I gave her an update on the various projects my team is working on.
2:00p: Met with my two student assistant for social media. We reviewed the stats from last week’s content and planned a video for today. This one…
3:00p: An external vendor reached out about partnering with the library on our Feel Good Finals events. I had to politely say no because it would violate our campus food contracts. I also emailed the campus children’s center to confirm the summer schedule for story time at the library. Finally, I handled some LMCC conference planning to-dos (I’m on the planning team for both the upcoming online conference and the in-person conference in November).
3:30p: Had a quick meeting with two of the speakers for next year’ Faculty Pub Night, mainly to discuss scope and promotional needs.
4:00p: Checked in on our Feel Good Finals setup (by this point, we had the campus radio station and student health services tabling outside the library). My son had shown up to the library by now as well so I had to make sure he wasn’t up to any trouble (he was not). I reviewed and provided feedback on a second video draft that my student employees created for Instagram (we’ll post it later this week). Finally, I emailed a potential new student hire with a job offer.
4:30p: My dean asked me to review a short bio and rewrite it in a more “punchier” style.
5:00p: Headed off to the end of the year Faculty BBQ. Didn’t end up leaving until after 7:30p.
Once upon a time, in internet days of old, librarian bloggers would annually create a “Day in the Life” post. The format has lived on in the GRWM and DITL posts on TikTok, but I still appreciate a good long-form blog post (see also 2023, 2017, 2015). If you are considering leadership work in an academic library (specifically of the outreach variety), here’s a glimpse of what it could look like.
8:30a: Arrive at work. At the end of last week, I created a video with my student employees for Star Wars Day so I posted the final cut to Instagram. Additionally, I had already drafted the May edition of the library’s monthly newsletter but was just awaiting the hero image photography from an event we hosted last Friday. Thankfully, the photographer had already sent the photo so I popped that into the newsletter and sent it off to our 5K subscribers.
9:00a: I have three presentations I’m making to the library’s leadership team today. I’m giving an overview of the production process for the library’s annual Year in Review (and twisting some arms into helping out). I have revisions to the library’s social media policy that I’d like to get approved (it was). Finally, I have results from a recent survey of our Instagram users which provided evidence of our social media’s impact on students’ perception of the library (tl;dr: it’s very good). So I spent a good hour preparing my talking points for all three of these presentations.
Word cloud of responses to a survey asking “How would you describe the @lmulibrary Instagram account to a friend?”
10:30a: Library leadership meeting with the dean, the library admin team, and all the department heads. In addition to my presentations above, we also discussed a new structure for our internal committees.
12:00p: Took a short walk and visited the farm animals setup we had for Finals Week.
12:30p: Reviewed photos submitted by faculty for next year’s Faculty Pub Night speakers series. I’ll be working on the promotional materials all summer long so I need to get the faculty’s professional headshots before they leave for the summer.
1:00p: A colleague reached out to me to ask whether being interviewed by a grad student in an journalism program was considered a “media request.” Because of [reasons] this one fell somewhat into that category, so I quickly prepared talking points and a brief media kit for them to review before they met with the student.
1:30p: Had a weekly 1:1 with one of my employees during which we talked about his recent projects and I asked for updates on some outstanding action items.
2:00p: Hosted my weekly department meeting. We had a debrief on last week’s Long Night Against Procrastination. We also reviewed progress on one of our team goals to update our internal documentation. We decided on gifts for our graduating student employees. We brainstormed objectives and desired outcomes for an upcoming collaboration with another team. Finally, we reviewed current projects for our student team.
3:30p: Met with my student graphic designer to review current projects. Their last project before they graduate as a matter of fact. 😢
4:00p: Spent about half an hour processing email.
4:45p: Headed out to take my son to his music lessons.
✈️💰 Lemieux Library at Seattle University offers travels awards to students. This is for students who have been accepted to present at a professional or scholarly event, including academic conferences, film festivals, etc. Students can receive up to $1,000 for travel expenses. The students are also asked to present a poster or give a presentation. It’s wonderful to see a library supporting students’ academic success in this way.
🪡👨🏼🦳 The University of Arkansas’s Mullins Library is launching a new series called “Granny Camp,” which is designed to foster a learning of practical skills (e.g. sewing craft) and encourage intergenerational dialogue. They provide the space and the snacks, and guests are encouraged to drop in as their schedules permit. What an amazing way for a campus to engage with the local community!
📼📸 Tulane University has published a new collection on early 1970s New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians for public research. The collection includes reel-to-reel and cassette tapes, photo negatives, research notes, and other materials that were collected as part of a dissertation project. “While the materials are preserved and made accessible by [Tulane Libraries], cultural authority remains with the tribes and individuals represented.”
🗿🏺 The “Re/Make History: Crafting the Past with 21st-Century Technologies” exhibition at Penn Libraries invites students to seek inspiration from archeological artifacts and rare books in order to make contemporary works of art, including earrings, chains (seen above), sculpture, toys, and even chocolates. In one notable example, the program coordinator used ChatGPT to help imagine a 3D model of a 2D image, which was then further refined by hand and in consultation with other sources. It’s a wonderful example of combining technology, art, craftsmanship, and research.
🤖📚 You can’t escape library news about artificial intelligence, so here’s a lightning round: The University of Virginia has launched the Statement of Shared Practice for libraries who want to address AI training requests of their unique archival and cultural heritage materials. Northwestern University received a $500K grant to transform an extensive collection of environmental impact statements into a dataset that can be analyzed through a new AI agent framework. Stony Brook University Libraries is launching a new course on critical data and AI literacies. Oh, and they are putting AI into library robots.
✏️🗺️ File under: “coolest idea of the month.” UW Wisconsin-Madison Libraries is hosted a “study crawl” for finals. The day-long event encourages students to take study breaks across campus at multiple library locations. Along the way, they can earn merch and win prizes. This seems like an event that would also work well by including campus partners, like the writing center or student health services.
Notable mentions
They say there is a LibGuide for everything. Well, Wayne State does not disappoint. May I present: Doors, a LibGuide.
Villanova Library put together a deep dive on Jesse Jackson.
Librarians are the mavens of undoing misinformation. With the rise of AI generated content, I’ve seen a number of content creators take on the mantle of “truth-discerners.” But even users of traditional platforms still need help sussing out hype from reality. Which is why I enjoyed this video from Penn Libraries of librarians responding to study tips found on Reddit.
Maintaining the university archives is one of the most important roles that an academic library plays in its community. I’ve often said that if I wasn’t an outreach librarian and I could start over, I would want to be a university archivist. Which is perhaps why I enjoyed this video from the University of Maryland.
What could you discover with the right tools and the right experts? The University of Vermont is hosting a research fair to promote its services. So bring in a creepy cat!
Last month, I gave a presentation at the CARL 2026 conference on the use of AI-generated images in library outreach and communications. Here is the full text of my presentation, adapted for sharing publicly, with select visuals from the slide deck (you can download the full deck from my Scholars @ LMU page).
Introduction
Hi, I’m John Jackson and I’m the head of outreach and engagement at the William H. Hannon Library at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. I’m here to hopefully encourage and enable you to create narratives that center the real, human connections between your library staff and your students. I’ll talk about some of the theoretical underpinnings of this advice and show you a few examples of how we’ve done this successfully at Loyola Marymount University. But first, I’m going to talk about why you should think twice before using AI generated content in your marketing and outreach materials. Let’s start with an object lesson.
How many of you are familiar with the “Make it More” trend? The “Make It More” trend was an AI generated meme that began on Twitter and Reddit and eventually moved to TikTok in 2023. Here’s how it worked: you prompt an AI image-generating tool like DALLE-3 or MidJourney to make an image. Then, with each proceeding prompt, you ask AI to make it increasingly more ridiculous. Here’s an example:
In Fall of 2025, I decided I could do this one better. I asked my student graphic designer Sophia if she could hand-illustrate an image of our library building. I then proceeded to give Sophia increasingly more ridiculous instructions. This was the result:
Who do you think did it better? The response from our followers on Instagram, as well as what felt like the entire online community of artists and illustrators, was overwhelmingly positive. It was, at the time, the most successful Instagram post we had ever created in the 15 years of running our library’s Instagram account. My favorite comment, which came from Hilbert Library, was “How do I get a Sophia?”
But John, you may ask: what if I want to use AI generated art? Well, I’m here to tell you using AI-generated art in library marketing and outreach rarely goes well. In fact, in all the examples that I found, the response was either outright negative or dead silence. [At this point in the presentation, I shared some examples from academic libraries. I’m not reproducing them here because I don’t think it would be fair to let them live on in infamy. Most of the AI-generated posts have since been deleted. But here are some examples of the comments]
And it’s not just in libraries. Here are some of the comments from the 2025 Coca-cola holiday commercial that was entirely AI-generated. As one commenter noted: “You know the entire point of these seasonal ads is to pretend you aren’t a soulless mega corporation, right?”
Take a look at the top of the comment section from a New York Mets post that was literally just an AI video of an apple. I like the comment from Dylan here. “Could it have been that hard to go to the top of the roof and put an Apple on the ledge of the building and film it?”
Some of this anti-AI art responses hit pretty close to home in higher ed as well. Here were some of the top responses to UNC’s announcement about the launch of an AI studio. As one person wrote: “Literally no one asked for this.”
And I’m sure many of you heard about the Libby debacle, when it came out that they were ingesting AI-generated books, some of it being labeled as AI slop, which then made it into the packages of ebooks they provide to libraries. The comments were vicious and folks are still responding in this way even on more current posts.
Some companies are even mocking AI as a brand strategy, as you can see that strategy on display here in this Polaroid and Heineken ad, which is making fun of a wearable AI device. So what’s the takeaway here?
Trust matters more than style. Effort matters more than the end result. And using real people and real situations, especially on social media platforms, signals authenticity. This is especially true for cultural and historical institutions like libraries, museums, and archives.
What this talk is not about
I do want to say two things at this point: #1, I’m not just here to talk about social media (though, I am going to come back to it before the end). Instead, I want to talk about the many ways we foster authenticity at the William H. Hannon Library by intentionally focusing on the “faces and places” of the library and by centering the people of our community. What I’m going to present has immediate applications to how libraries do marketing and outreach, but also applies to what we put on our websites, what we show at our events, and what we present in the classroom.
And #2: this is not an anti-AI presentation, because I do think AI can support library outreach, especially in creating more accessible digital experiences, but this presentation is humans-preferred because Rule #1 of marketing is “make something people want.” And I’m here to show you that what people want more than anything, is to feel they belong, and using AI-generated content can be directly oppositional to that desire.
Theoretical background
So let me start by looking briefly at some of the research that undergirds a lot of what I’ll be showing you today. I want to bring your attention to two concepts I’m sure many of you are familiar with: sense of belonging and library anxiety.
Sense of belonging is an individual’s desire to be part of a community and their attachment to a specific place. It includes the ability to project oneself into a future that includes the shared experiences of that community. Library anxiety is the emotional state that arises when a student enters the library. This state can be characterized by stress, fear, shame and confusion.
Research across higher education consistently shows that belonging is a central factor in student success. Psychologists Baumeister and Leary define belonging as a “fundamental human motivation”, putting it alongside essential needs like those we see in Maslow’s hierarchy. And studies repeatedly confirm that students who feel they belong earn stronger grades, persist at higher rates, and experience better mental health (Goplan and Brady, 2019; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017; Walton and Brady, 2017)
At a campus level, belonging is often measured through three simple questions: whether students feel they can be themselves, whether they feel valued, and whether they feel part of the community. Students who answer “yes” to these questions are more likely to engage with campus resources, including the library, further reinforcing their academic success (Lu, 2023; Yeager et al. 2026; Strayhorn, 2012).
For academic libraries specifically, belonging is shaped largely through relationships: the small, everyday interactions that signal to students that they are seen, respected, and welcomed. In Portal, Couture et al. found that for first-generation students, real-life interactions with library staff are among the most powerful contributors to a sense of belonging. Reed (2025) similarly argues that social relationships with library employees are a primary mechanism through which belonging can be cultivated.
This aligns closely with the literature on library anxiety, a concept grounded in feelings of shame, fear of judgment, and uncertainty about how to navigate the library. A wide body of evidence shows that direct contact with librarians—whether through orientation programs, formal interactions, or informal conversations—significantly reduces library anxiety (Black, 2016; McAfee, 2018). Lackner (2022) summarizes this well: creating human connections that foster belonging is the antidote to library anxiety.
Ramsey and Brown (2018) note that inclusive atmospheres, diverse representation in promotional materials, and visibility of students from marginalized backgrounds help counter the “outsider” feelings inherent in impostor syndrome. Students need to see themselves in the library to believe they belong in it.
This all ties directly into our current conversation about library marketing and communication. Bedenbaugh (2016) and Tanner (2023) argue that “humanizing the library” is essential—not just aesthetically, but psychologically. Students respond more strongly to real faces, real places, and real interactions. Tanner’s findings are explicit: images of real humans perform better, while illustrated or artificial substitutes widen the emotional distance between the library and its users.
Recent research on AI-generated promotional content reinforces this concern. Carvalho et al. (2025) found that even when participants couldn’t reliably distinguish between human- and AI-generated text, the perceived effectiveness dropped as soon as they suspected a message was created by AI. In other words: the more content feels machine-made, the less persuasive it becomes.
To wrap this all up, emerging library-specific research underscores the link between belonging and academic outcomes. Scoulas identifies library employees as a central driver of inclusion. In a later study, Scoulas, Naru, and Yu (2025) connect students’ perceptions of library spaces, collections, and support services directly to their sense of belonging; echoing broader findings that belonging predicts persistence, motivation, resilience, academic achievement, and well‑being.
Across all this research, one message emerges clearly: Students feel like they belong when the library feels human. Belonging is built through authentic interactions and in environments where students feel recognized. These connections are what counteract library anxiety and support ongoing academic success.
Centering the human in library outreach
So let me now talk about how we do that at Loyola Marymount University. I’m going to focus on two areas: Centering the Human in Library Outreach and Centering the Human in Library Marketing. Let’s start with outreach and programming.
One the first experiences students have with the library at LMU is the Library Open House. We host this annual event every fall semester. It’s essentially a giant carnival where each library department hosts a table with games or a fun activity. The goal isn’t necessarily to teach students anything in particular (though that’s always nice if we do). Instead, our main goal is to introduce students to the “faces and places” of the library. Meet library staff. Explore our building. And hopefully form a bond between staff and students within the physical space of the library.
At the end of the event, we ask students “To what extent do you feel comfortable asking library staff for help?” and for the past four years, 98% report feeling comfortable or very comfortable asking for help after attending the library open house. As one student told us: “It was a very fun and interactive event that helped me feel more comfortable about going to the library in the future. I also was able to meet new Lions while playing the games and exploring all levels of the library.” and “It was great and the energy of the staff made the library a safe/comfortable environment.”
These two comments (and there’s way more where this came from), respectively speak to both reducing library anxiety and fostering a sense of belonging, through the act of person-to-person connection.
Another unique event that we’ve hosted for the past 10 years is LMU Speaks. This is a storytelling program, similar to The Moth or NPR Storycorp, where we ask 5 members of our campus community to tell a true, personal story around a central theme. We always invite a mix of faculty, staff, administrators, and students; and the themes are things like “The Fork in the Road” or “Standing on Business” or like we did in 2021 “Hitting the Reset.” At the end of the event, we ask attendees whether they spoke with at least one person they’d never met before.
We also ask them if, as a result of attending this event, they feel a stronger connection to LMU and 100% agreed or strongly agreed. As one attendee noted this past year: “I learned that everyone has struggles you have no idea about that show up in their life in so many ways.” This is fostering a sense of belonging: by helping students see themselves in other students, faculty, and staff.
But making these human connections isn’t just something that happens during large, public events. At LMU Library, we also do this behind the scenes. Like many institutions, we have an email marketing platform that allows us to quickly create mass email campaigns. But we also rely heavily on personal, one-to-one email outreach. For example, we have this speaker series called “Faculty Pub Night” where we invite faculty to speak about their latest “publication.” We also serve beer and wine so it’s like a pub with pubs. (Get it?) Anyway, in order to build an audience for this series, my team and I comb through the course catalog and identify specific classes that we think might enjoy whatever the topic of the Faculty Pub Night is. We then individually email the faculty teaching those courses to invite them and their class to the event.
This work is time-consuming, but it also has a much higher ROI than mass emails campaign. It might take me an hour to personalize and send out 20 of these invitations. But if just 1-2 promise to bring their classes? Well, then I’ve got a packed room at our next event. It’s worth the effort. And it’s built on the personal connections that me and my team have built with many of these faculty over the years. They trust me not to spam them and to only contact them if I really think it’s worth their time.
Finally, we send personalized welcome packets to all new staff and faculty at LMU. I know, this sounds crazy. But we get a list of newly hired staff every two weeks from Human Resources. It’s usually about 10-15 people at most. Since we can look up their contact info in Outlook, we put together a packet that includes a welcome letter, our latest annual report, and some library merch. One month after sending those letters, I follow up with a personal email inviting them to come take a one-on-one tour with me of the library, where I talk about the services the library provides for university staff. I end up doing about 2-3 personal tours per month for new employees.
Centering the human in library marketing
So that’s just a sample of what we do to center the human in outreach and programming. Now, I want to shift from talking about events and circle back to talking about marketing and the ways in which we center the human in our external communications work.
When I create content for our external communications, I always strive to center our library users and their personal stories. Last year, we created a six-part video series about some of the people who use LMU library regularly, folks we called our “Library Fans.” Here’s one video about Alexsiya, a graduate student, a parent, and a frequent visitor to our library.
One thing that I think is clear from that video is that the story matters. And some mediums are better at telling stories than others. In the year of our lord 2026, video is king. Primarily short form video. It’s the primary way that most students consume media, especially among teens, 73% of whom, according to Pew Research, reporting using sites like YouTube daily. Of course, anyone who uses Instagram or TikTok knows that the algorithms for both these platforms prioritize video over static images. So if you want you stories to actually get any eyeballs, you really need to focus on developing video content. At LMU, instead of posting static graphics or digital fliers, we primarily focus on promoting our services through video using our own students and staff. Here are two examples of the ways we’ve promoted our film collections at LMU Library.
Now, those videos are fun, but creating video content has a steep learning curve. And the expectations for quality keep getting bumped up a notch all the time. So if video production isn’t in your tool kit, at least use photography. Again, centering real people and real library spaces, preferably your own. Don’t use stock photography: your students can tell.
49% of the social media posts we’ve created since August 2025 (183 out of 376 total) include photography or video of current LMU students, faculty, staff, or librarians. And that doesn’t include archival photos, like images of students from the university archives, which are also very popular. If you include that, it’s closer to 57%. Only 6% of our IG posts are event fliers and yet we still have high attendance at our events. And our engagement since August 2025 is through the roof. Our content interactions are up 6.6 thousand percent.
One really easy way to center the human in library marketing is to utilize student talent. At LMU Library, I hire a student graphic designer, a student videographer, and 2-3 student social media assistants to help create content each week. Here’s an example of one video that Petra and Jmac made asking folks how they use they library. All of these students were interviewed with consent (and spoiler: students were asked in advance if we could film them), but their responses are genuine and they showcase how actual students actually use our library. I’ll just show you the first one, which we made after someone suggested to me that students don’t know they can use the library without actually going into the library. The resulting video turned out to be a great way to highlight our online resources.
The video work we do is still relatively young in its development. I just started hiring a student videographer a few years ago, but for the past 10 years, I’ve hired a graphic designer, usually a junior or a senior, to help create unique, promotional materials for our events and our collections.
Here are a few examples of Instagram carousels my current student, Sophia Chavez, has created to highlight our Staff Picks LibGuide and our Popular Reading Collection. This Radiohead carousel from a couple months ago knocked our anti-AI library video, the one I showed you at the beginning of this presentation, knocked it out of the top spot on Instagram. It has since been shared more that 2600 times, saved by over 4,000 people, and currently has over a 156,000 views. This post alone brought more than 800 people to our profile page. All of this is hand-illustrated, or at least human-designed promotional materials. However, there’s a caveat.
Content development is one thing. But content strategy requires a more experienced hand. Someone who can see the connections between the library’s value, our strategic priorities, the needs of our users, and the university’s mission. So I do just want to make it clear that I’m not suggesting you hand over all your marketing and promotional work to students, but they can be and should be essential partners in that work.
Librarians at the forefront
Instead, I would like to recommend that you focus on the more stable faces of your library. In keeping with our theme of centering the human, I encourage you to think of yourselves as local influencers. Specifically for your campus community. Or if not you, then think of 1-2 of your colleagues who might be able to do this type of work well. Going back to the research I spoke about earlier, when students know someone who works in the library, when they can put a face to a name, and connect that face to the library as an organization or the library as a service, that will positively reduce library anxiety. That will foster sense of belonging. Even if that face is just someone they regularly see on the library’s website, YouTube page, or social media.
There are a few libraries that I believe are doing this really well. Oklahoma State University Libraries, Kansas State, University of Wyoming, UCSB, Emerson College, and William and Mary Libraries, just to name a few. They have created “recurring characters” in their external communications that have backstories, and lore, and complicated relationships with other recurring characters. Whether it’s library student employees or the dean of the library, there’s a real human face that students can come back to again and again. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that some of the most successful academic libraries on social media are also the libraries that regularly feature people in their promotional content.
Conclusion: A critical framework
So what have we learned. We’ve learned that reducing library anxiety and fostering a sense of belonging are essential to student engagement with the library. We’ve seen how AI-generated content can create the opposite effect and cause students to feel a disconnect with the library’s brand. Finally, we saw examples of how the library’s “faces and places” can be leveraged to strengthen the connection between library users and the library organization.
I want to leave you with some guiding questions and provide you with a critical framework: What value(s) do libraries offer for their community? Does automating our voice and giving over our brand to AI-generated content increase that value? Does it support our values? I would argue that it does not. The library’s voice is not just a tool: it’s a reflection its values. By centering human intelligence in our messaging, we model the kind of discernment we hope to cultivate in our students, discernment that is linked to questions of justice, community building, and community values. We can ask ourselves:
Does the time/effort this saves me erase an opportunity for building a relationship with my community/users?
How will my community respond when they discover this content is AI generated? (i.e., do you have an art or MFA program on campus?)
Does using AI-generated content reflect the values of my library? My university?
What practical opportunities does not using AI present? (e.g., student employment, building my skill sets, deep learning)
This is a critical framework for thinking about the use of AI-generated content in library outreach and marketing. Looking at these various dimensions, I have critical questions you should ask yourself, why it matters, what might be some indicators of a human-centered practice, and what are some possible red flags. I’ve listed here 8 dimensions for consideration: belonging, authenticity, relationship-building, community impact, equity and inclusion, mission and pedagogy, labor, and brand health.
For example, before using AI-generated content in your outreach, consider how this impacts belonging: does the content I’m creating help students see themselves in the library? Because when they see themselves in our future…. Literally see themselves and their friends in photographs… this helps strengthen persistence and motivation. On the flip side, and this is the “red flags” column, if you’re using AI-generated images, it’s essentially the same as using stock photos: no one will recognize themselves in your messaging.
And here’s part two. For example, looking at DEI, does using AI-generated content reflect diversity or exacerbate imposterization? This matters because students need to see themselves to feel they belong. If you’re doing this right, you’ll have real people telling real stories, rather than homogenized or stereotyped imagery.
This critical framework is applicable not just to the outreach we do through marketing and promotional work, but I would argue it’s also applicable in the classroom, on our websites, and at our service desks. Any one of these dimensions: belonging, authenticity, relationship-building, community impact, equity and inclusion, mission and pedagogy, labor, and brand health… all of these are impacted when we make the decision to outsource our library’s voice to AI-generated content.
And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed the presentation. Again, please feel welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn! Thank you so much for listening!
References
Baumeister R. F., Leary M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529.
Bedenbaugh, R. A. (2016). Marketing is Our Game: Tackling the Library Awareness Gap. Public Services Quarterly, 12(4), 321–328.
Black, S. (2016). Psychosocial reasons why patrons avoid seeking help from librarians: A literature review. The Reference Librarian, 57(1), 35–56.
Carvalho I., et. al. (2025), “Beyond human touch: evaluating the effectiveness of AI, human, and hybrid-generated tourism promotional texts”. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights, 8(10), 3804–3824.
Couture, J. et al. (2021). “We’re Gonna Figure This Out”: First-Generation Students and Academic Libraries. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 21(1), 127–147.
Gopalan, M., & Brady, S. T. (2019). College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A National Perspective. Educational Researcher, 49(2), 134-137.
Lackner, J. (2022). Confronting library anxiety. Public Services Quarterly, 18(3), 224–231.
Lu, A. (2023, May 9). How to Turn Your Campus Into a Place of Belonging. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2017). Supporting students’ college success: The role of assessment of intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies. National Academies Press.
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Scoulas, J. M., Naru, L., & Yu, Y. (2025). Factors Influencing Undergraduate Sense of Belonging at a Public Research University. Journal of Library Administration, 65(3), 343–360.
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Social media happens so fast. I mean, just a couple weeks ago, none of us had ever imagined what 12 tons of KitKats looked like. So in between the monthly “Recently in Academic Libraries” posts, I pull together regular updates on what AcadLibs are doing on social. Please enjoy these recent highlights.
The Bass Library at Yale created (appropriately) a bass-based wayfinding strategy. The libraries at the University of Georgia was forcing students to compete in Beast Games to reduce late fees. While Drexel went all digital and emptied their shelves. At Beinecke Library, there is now a pool open to registered researchers. William & Mary was offering students the opportunity to check out library narrators.
Fondren Libraries wants us to think the library whiteboards are all empty during finals. UCSB replaced all its furniture with its famous red booths. The University of Albany Libraries has a new intern. And in what is perhaps my favorite post, Clemson Libraries did a reverse Uno on its noise levels.
🌏🗺️ The University of Michigan Library is posting a 3-part history about its copy of Abraham Ortelius’s “Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.” The library’s copy is rare, being one of the first forty ever printed. It’s also in need of extensive conservation and repair, the process of which UM is documenting through its news blog and on video. The book will be completely disbound and washed, old “fixes” will be unfixed and repaired, then it will be rebound in new material. It’s great to see the library documenting the entire process.
📻🎙️ Self-archiving is one of the greatest kindnesses you can give to future researchers. Carolyn Armenta Davis recently donated her collection of self-taped radio broadcasts featuring Black classical composers to Northwestern Libraries. Davis is a polymath whose curiosities extend to architecture, health research, and television news writing. This sentence encapsulates the impact of Davis’s decision: “Davis asked WEFM to her record her show, and she was able to retain the tapes because she was an independent writer-producer who had secured her own sponsor, Commonwealth Edison. Without that effort, this piece of radio history would have been lost.”
🤖💬 Brown University Libraries has created a critical AI learning community for students, faculty, and staff to explore and critique artificial intelligence technology and its implications for learners and researchers. It aims to center issues relating to justice and power, and is open to folks of various experience levels, covering conversations on practical skills, critical thinking, ethical issues, and social impact. Personally, I find these communities of practice to be more helpful than AI task forces that rush too quickly to codify policies and best practices– like building the ship while sailing rather than stopping to examine why we’re even on these ships in the first place.
📷 Washington State University Libraries is participating in a series of events highlighting the history of farm workers in the Yakima Valley by creating a display of photographs from its collections for National Farmworker Awareness Week. NFAW is a week of action for university students and community members to honor farmworkers’ important contributions and to raise awareness about the issues they face. The library is working in collaboration with WSU CAMP, a federally funded program that helps first-year students from migrant and seasonal farm-working backgrounds transition to college each year.
Notable mentions
Two pages from Matthew Paris OSB, Chronica maiora I, (ca. 1240 – 1255). The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge.
Indiana University Bloomington Libraries provides step by step instruction for creating a Japanese accounting ledger.
The Robert Van Houten Library at NJIT is challenging students to race a librarian (at search).
Parker Library on the Web, a collaboration between Stanford University Libraries and University of Cambridge, is celebrating 15 years of digital collections.
Blending art and research, the J. Willard Marriott Library is hosting its inaugural “Image of Research” competition.
Also from Marriott Library, they’ve expanded their “ProtoSpace” with some additional audio production equipment and software.
BYU Library has refurbished a card catalog cabinet into a seed library.
“Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls was one of my favorite songs growing up (as a teen, I was a massive Meg Ryan fan and the City of Angels soundtrack is nothing but bangers). So when the “Mom, what were you like in the 90s” trend started last month, I watched every single iteration. AcadLibs really took to this trend, using it as an opportunity to promote university archives and photos of really old tech (i.e., desktop PCs). Kansas State, Utah Valley University, Claremont Colleges Library, Loyola Marymount University, University of San Diego, Cal Sate LA, and Kenyon College, just to name a few. This meme was a perfect opportunity for university archivists to parter with the central university MarComm teams to collab over institutional history.
Purdue Libraries hosted a video contest that challenged students to answer the question: “What do incoming students most need to know about Purdue Libraries to succeed?” The winning video does not disappoint, showcasing real student anxieties and successes. You can also explore the other winners as well as past videos on Purdue’s website.
This photo carousel format from UC Santa Barbara is elegant and simple, utilizing high-quality photography and the experience of receiving an AirDropped photo. I could easily see other libraries using this format to highlight specific materials (e.g. “UCSB Libraries would like to share a book”). It might also work with silly, BTS photography (e.g. students doing weird things in library spaces), with each photo getting progressively weirder; or, posted chronologically to tell the story of a recent library event.
Copley Library at University of San Diego took the “my boss left me a voice memo” format to promote a list of updates for their library, including spring break hours, an upcoming game night, and National Library Week. I hadn’t seen this meme in a few months, but it reminded me how useful it can be to highlight multiple announcements or CTAs in one video, even when those things may not have a single throughline.
Promoting VR creation services in a 2D medium like video is difficult, not just because you don’t get the full experience, but because the learning curve for creating and utilizing VR is steep. But I love how Virginia Tech told a very human story of one student’s project. The video is just the right balance of enticing and informative, without being overwhelming.
banner image: page from UM’s copy of Abraham Ortelius’s “Theatrum Orbis Terrarum”
Social media happens so fast. I mean, just a couple weeks ago, none of us had ever considered posting all our staff’s baby photos online. So in between the monthly “Recently in Academic Libraries” posts, I pull together regular updates on what AcadLibs are doing on social. Please enjoy these recent highlights.
Good video = good vibes
I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for a well-thought out video. It doesn’t need to be complicated or even that “cinematic,” but if it’s obvious that someone put some thought into it, I’m impressed. Two videos recently caught my attention, one from Grand Valley State University Libraries and the other from Temple University Libraries. The GVSU video is just a simple exploration of colors in library spaces, but charmingly executed. The Temple video is more complex, but does a good job of keeping the viewer’s attention with a mix of close up and medium shots, with regular cuts.
I think this trend started with university level accounts, but this is one from Pollack Library at CSUF of the better ones I’ve seen. It’s fairly easy to execute with invisible wipes/cuts between each shot, and an easy way both to highlight library study rooms and (in a kind way) poke fun at some of the ridiculous ways in which students use them. We did one at my library as well last month.
Want better study rooms? We do too! Support us during TitansGive on March 11th and help us upgrade our study spaces for all students. The donation link will be in our Linktree! Disclaimer: Please don’t try any of these activities in the study rooms lol
I’ve said it before: If you’re not having fun creating social content, you’re not doing it right. Butler Libraries is obviously having fun with their latest Day of Giving videos. Though I guess if you have a giant pool in your library, you’re already having fun. (See also the follow up.)
