Catalyst Grant Final Report
“Sensory-Friendly Equipment for Bird Library”
Please provide a brief narrative explaining your project and its outcomes.
The purpose of this project was to expand the services and equipment available at Syracuse University Libraries to address the sensory needs of our patrons. We did this in two ways: by purchasing the loaner equipment available at our main branch’s Check Out Desk, and by implementing 10 “Sensory-Friendly” study rooms.
The new loaner technology included 5 noise-cancelling headphones and 4 over-the-ear ear muffs. I wanted to be sure include both to include an option for patrons who may be sensitive to the often-imperceptible noises that electronics can make. Since these items were added to the collection in August 2024, the ear muffs have been loaned 18 times and the noise-cancelling headphones have gone out 318 times. As with any new technology that is added to our loaner tech, the hardest task is getting the word out that these items are now available for patrons to use. These items were added to our “Borrow Laptops and Gear” webpage, which includes a dropdown menus specifically for our “Wellness Collection” items, and once the study rooms were ready, our Marketing Director released a news release for the University highlighting the rooms and loaner tech. I also believe that word-of-mouth has played a significant role in letting patrons new about the new options available.
To create the Sensory Friendly study rooms, the funds provided by the grant were used to purchase dimmable lamps, sensory discs, liquid bubblers, and a variety of fidget items (plus baskets to hold them) for each room. Once the rooms were ready, our room reservation system had to be updated to label each of these rooms, and a set of window clings were ordered by our Marketing Director to physically label each room in the library as well. These clings were especially fun to put together because they resulted from a collaboration between the Libraries and our Center for Disability Resources. While working on this project, I was struggling to identify any widely-accepted or official imagery for sensory friendly spaces. As such, I reached out to both Accessibility Specialist here at Bird Library and my contact in CDR for their input on what to use. With CDR’s help, we created a sign that indicated that each of our study rooms were quiet, universally accessible (not just physically), and had low lighting. Since this whole project was originally prompted by an inquiry from CDR about more comfortable spaces in the library for neuro-divergent students, it was fulfilling to have it come full circle and include that department in the final result.
While not necessarily an obstacle, per se, this project was delayed until Fall 2024 due to my institution undergoing a full LIS migration from Voyager to Alma/Primo VE. This was partially due to my heavy involvement in that migration, which took up the vast majority of my time for the first half of 2024, but also, because we knew we would be transferring over our data from one system to the next, we did not want catalog or update any items in our old system before it migrated. This project provided me with an ideal chance to practice cataloging new loaner technology and updating our study rooms after the migration was completed.
Another obstacle that I have faced, unfortunately, is that many of the items that I purchased for the rooms (including the dimmable lamps, and in one case, even the whole basket), were taken from the rooms by patrons, which lowered the efficacy of the rooms. This has caused us to reevaluate how we secure the items in the rooms, as well as adjusting our mindset for how these rooms will function. Most notably, we decided to select fidget items that we now fully expect to leave the rooms – items are selected that can be purchased in bulk for low cost so the upkeep for them should be minimal to our department budget. We also worked with our Marketing department to supply SU branded fidgets – the thought being that if they are going to be taken, we may as well add our logo to them. I have also now purchased locks that require a code, which will be used to secure the lamps to the rooms. While this is certainly not the ideal for how this project would go, it is a good learning opportunity for me regarding projects like this in the future, and will hopefully provide insight if we ever plan to expand or update the rooms in the future.
What is the most remarkable accomplishment or finding of your project?
Perhaps the most surprising accomplishments about this project (for me, at least) was the attention that it received across our campus. I had done a vaguely similar project before, where we added some electronic massage chairs to our Library, but that project was mirrored off of another department on campus and therefore was not particularly new to the University. This project, however, was surprisingly picked up by our student-run newspaper, the Daily Orange, and I was featured in an interview about the project. While that by itself was surprising and exciting, I was not prepared for that interest to expand even further. After that article came out, I was contacted three more times by students wishing to interview me about the rooms and their purpose in the Libraries. I eventually learned that the three follow-up interviews were specifically for a class project in one of our TV/Radio/Film classes, but that likely means that the Faculty member of that class took notice of the project and considered it a good option to provide for their students to investigate. In a career that often feels like pulling teeth to get our services known to the public, it was fulfilling and exciting to know that our work was being recognized and that more students were learning about the options that we had available for them at the Library.
How did your project differ from what you originally proposed?
Originally, this project was going to convert 9 of our reservable, individual study rooms (which have light switches instead of automatic lighting). As we reevaluated how our study rooms were being utilized, this was adjusted to include 8 of our reservable rooms and 2 first come, first serve rooms, which could be given upon request at our Check Out Desk. This adjusted the budget slightly as I had to plan for an additional room, as well as updating our policies to reflect how non-reservable rooms would be advertised and handled by the staff at our Check Out Desk. Beyond that, our project stuck pretty close to our original proposal.
Please provide a brief summary of your evaluation activities and/or results, if available.
A few months after the Sensory Friendly study rooms were launched, we realized that it would be impossible to evaluate the popularity of the rooms based on circulation data, as we simply physically converted 10 of our existing individual study rooms, which means all of their reservations and circulation data would just add to what already existed for these rooms before this project to place (which is years worth of data). In an attempt to gather that data, I created a Feedback Survey that could be accessed via QR code in each of the rooms, with one question asking if the patron had selected that room specifically because it was labeled as a sensory friendly space, or if it was simply because it was an available study room. We also ask patrons if the rooms are what they expected or if there is anything that they would to be included in the rooms in the future. To date, we have only received 13 responses to this survey. These survey responses, plus the circulation data that we can gather about the new loaner technology (noise-cancelling headphones and ear muffs), are being evaluated to determine the popularity of the rooms/tech and what improvements could be considered for the future.
Kristin Jeter
Access Services Librarian, Syracuse University
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