1. No Donuts, No Doors: Building and Hosting a Virtual Open House
Nykol Eystad - Manager, Liaison & Outreach
Susan Stekel – Manager, Information Literacy & Instruction
Walden University

2. Agenda Walden University, Online Libraries, and Outreach
Planning: goals and challenges
Execution
Assessment
Lessons learned
Takeaways

3. Walden University
Susan

4. Who we are Walden University is entirely online
Students around the world
50,000 students
Mostly working professionals, adult learners
Degrees: Bachelors through Doctoral + certificates
Library staff: 22 Librarians
13 student-facing
Library Website = Library

5. The Library:

6. Challenges of Outreach/Communications
No central campus or library building
Library is linked in portal and in course rooms, but hard to “stand out”
How do we communicate with students?
Student Communications department – ONE PERSON!
– it’s easy to ignore
Efforts to handle outreach/communications in house
Newsletters
Social media

7. Open House Planning

8. Why? Fun, social, friendly, stress-free
Showcase the library as a strong resource
Introduce students to the Library
There are REAL people here!

9. Uncharted territory Professional Literature search Land based
Google Search
Watch us sit around a boardroom table
Walden event
New student Orientation model
Live and recorded

10. Brainstorming & Vision
Start of the academic year
Available to anyone
Current Walden community
Future Walden community
Event duration
Time zones/Timing
Communication Plan – Enrollment Advisors, Academic Advisors, Social Media, Newsletters

11. Decisions Week long fun! Synchronous and asynchronous
How will people register?
Fun vs instruction
Online event that isn’t a webinar
Incentives

12. Open House Execution

13. 8GB!! Making it happen Created Open House web page
Posted to library home page
Communication reality
Pushed to marketing
Prize ordering & centralizing
8GB!!

14. Asynchronous Events Scavenger hunt – LibWizard form
designed to get people to explore the website 
Hidden Treasures
Treasure placement
Fabulous prizes

17. Synchronous Events Library Trivia Game Interactive quiz game – 5:00pm
Stump the Librarian Participants attempted to stump our librarians with their questions – 1:00pm & 5:00pm
One of These Things is not Like the Other Participants tried to identify the fake resource from the real resources – 1:30pm & 8:30pm
Talkin’ Traveling Trivia with Taylor Participants view a short video clip to identify where it was filmed; then they were asked trivia questions about the location – 6:00pm

18. Fabulous Prize Distribution
Filter all the entries
small prize winners
Glorious online randomized drawing
8GB!!
Nykol

19. Open House Assessment

20. Open House Page Traffic

21. Hidden Treasure: Link placed on our Library Skills page

22. Hidden Treasure: Fake library staff
Susan

23. Hidden Treasure: Link placed on our Get Help page

24. Hidden Treasure: Image placed on Find an Exact Article page
Susan

25. Scavenger Hunt question

26. Synchronous events Library Trivia Game: 9 attendees (1 was staff)
Talkin’ Travelin’ Trivia with Taylor Leigh: 3 attendees
One of These Things is Not Like the Other:
Afternoon session: 6 attendees (1 was staff)
Evening session: 4 attendees
Stump the Librarian: Took place in Zoom (1 staff)

27. Lessons Learned

28. What did we find out? Synchronous activities, not popular
Asynchronous worked great
The dread scavenger hunt works well in an online setting!
A week is sweet
Prize challenges*
Prize language is tricky**
*The first 12 people to find a treasure will win a prize, limit one prize per person. Hidden treasures entries will continue to be accepted after all prizes have been awarded and will be entered into the grand prize Kindle** drawing. Limit to eight entries per person.
**There will be a drawing for the grand prize of a Kindle. One Kindle drawing entry per person for each event or activity completed, limit to eight entries per person.

29. Take Aways

30. Do it at your library
Consider adding a virtual open house even with a physical library
Incorporate your website and online resources into open house (especially asynchronous exploration activities)
Identify your partners and stakeholders (Marketing? Legal? Technology? Academic departments?)
Divvy up work load and responsibility (e.g. Someone to assess scavenger hunts; someone to manage prizes, etc)
Donuts are always good – and in a virtual open house, you can eat them all yourself.
Susan

31. Questions Nykol.eystad@mail.waldenu.edu Susan.stekel@mail.waldenu.edu