Access, Information, and User Services Department
The vision of AIUS is to be a central and positive hub for the access, information, and user experience the physical library.
Department Description
About AIUS and Our Mission: The Access, Information, and User Services (AIUS) Department is the vibrant, user-centered
public face of the library. We develop and provide services that connect users to
library resources. Being the first and primary point of contact for most library users
in the physical building, we strive to provide experiences that are positive and rewarding.
We answer questions, promote services, and educate users. From our front-line information
and circulation services to our behind-the-scenes collections maintenance, AIUS is
about making the user experience the best it can be.
Our Service Philosophy & Values
- Assist: Together, we work to assist and connect users to the outcomes they seek, customizing our approaches to meeting individual's unique needs on their personal pathways to success.
- Inquire: We are people who inquire, who look beyond the obvious to guide each user to the options they need to thrive.
- Unite: We strive to create a united service front that values and respects community and diversity.
- Support: We support one another, our library colleagues, and our library community by striving towards exemplifying our service philosophy and values in everything we do.
Our Responsibilities
- Building Management
- Circulation
- Collections Maintenance
- Facilities Management and Accessibility
- General Public Services
- Library Building Hours Management, Digital and Physical
- Library Lingo, the library's newsletter
- ‘Library of Things’ (i.e., tech and more) Management and Development
- Physical Course Reserves
- Public Computing, Printing, & Technology General Support and Reporting
- Reservable Study Space Management
- Security/Emergency Communications
- Signage/Wayfinding
- Student Employee Management
Our People
- Stephanie Breen
- Cindy Hinson
- Ethan Hoerr
- Jasmine James
- Kris Johnson
- Jessica Leach
- Steph Sander
- Caroline Shaffer
- Janice Stokes
Learn more about the members of our department.
Campus Partners
- AIUS partners with the MSU Life Scholars Program to host a Life Scholar intern once per year.
- We also partner with the EDU331 (Literature and Literacy for Children) course by creating book displays of award-winning children’s literature, such as the Pura Belpré and Caldecott awards. We also provide accompanying materials and answer follow-up reference questions from students taking the course.
- AIUS partners with the Science Math Resource Center to provide Citizen Science Kits for checkout as well as celestial binoculars.
- We also partnered with the Undergraduate Chemistry Society to obtain molecular modeling kits for checkout.
Project Highlight
AIUS implements projects to collect user feedback. Our goal for these projects is to gather user needs, opinions, & desires in order to document what we’re doing well and identify possible areas for improvement or enhancement. In a nutshell, we want to find out what our users really want so we can make the library a better place for them!
Currently we use a whiteboard at the elevator and a blue scale at the Service Desk
to prompt users to respond to a variety of questions. Some are just for fun! Some
are to learn how students study, use our spaces, collaborate or work alone, and more.
Every February we implement a Love Letter, Break Up Letter project, where we ask users
to give us their feedback in the form of a written letter. We provide feedback boxes
in our reservable study spaces to help learn what users like about the spaces and/or
whether we need to make tweaks for adjustments.