Lawlapalooza: A Research Odyssey

Staff participation is critical for a successful event. In the lead-up to the first research fair, the library staff provided suggestions and voted on a name for the fair. The winner the first year was "Lawlapalooza", which we have continued to use each subsequent year. To tie into our focus for each fair, the staff now votes on a theme-related tag line. Examples include: Research Rocks, Research Connections, Research...Know Your Stuff, and Explore, Discover, Go. Research 360.

Supervisors encourage library staff to participate both during lead-up activities and on the actual event day. We've successfully used Sign-Up Genius to make sure that all shifts (1 to 2 hours) of the event are covered. Shifts include pizza distribution, game card distribution, staffing of the library information table, prize distribution, and event set-up and clean-up.

In 2018, one of our vendors was not able to attend at the last minute. Our circulation staff quickly gathered materials they use for orientation and put together their "The Answers Are Out There" display, including popular materials from our Reserve Collection, such as Nutshells, hornbooks, and Examples & Explanations. Created on the fly, it was intended to be an unmanned table, but proved to be so popular that a librarian staffed the table to answer student questions about the resources and to provide students a sticker for their game card. This table was included again in 2019 and staffed by circulation staff and a librarian.