This practice brief describes the assessment project undertaken by the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University as part of the library’s participation in ARL’s Research Library Impact Framework initiative to address the question “(How) do the library’s special collections specifically support and promote teaching, learning, and research?” The research team investigated how the Freshman Fellows experience impacted the fellows’ studies and co-curricular activities at the university. Freshmen Fellows, established in 2016, is a signature opportunity to expose students to primary-source collections early in their college career by pairing four fellows with four curators on individual research projects. The program graduated its first cohort of fellows in spring 2020. The brief includes a semi-structured interview guide, program guidelines, and a primary research rubric.
To cite
Burri, Margaret, Joshua Everett, Heidi Herr, and Jessica Keyes. Library Impact Practice Brief: Freshman Fellows: Implementing and Assessing a First-Year Primary-Source Research Program. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries, July 15, 2021. https://doi.org/10.29242/brief.jhu2021.
