Citizen Science (CS) projects depend on volunteers for data collection, and are often associated with universities and research organizations. Common CS projects include bird sightings, water quality efforts, and astronomy. We hypothesized that academic libraries (ALs) of land-grant universities would have more support for CS than non-land grant universities because of their inherent mission of public education rooted in science and engineering. We first searched the library guides of all Carnegie-designated R1 universities to see if there was a dedicated research guide on the topic, and we also noted if there was a “shout-out” to CS projects on guides that were not entirely dedicated to CS. Of the 116 R1 universities in the United States, 7% had a dedicated guide. Of the land-grant universities, 11% had dedicated research guides, whereas only 5% of the non-land grant universities had research guides on CS. Taking shout-outs of CS projects into account as well as dedicated research guides, 26% of land-grant universities met this criteria, compared to 16% of non-land grant R1’s. Additionally, public R1 universities in this study supported CS at a rate of 21%, compared to 14% of private R1 universities. Our poster not only explores this data visually, but will also share data and information on existing projects and organizations devoted to CS and will offer a brief analysis of the existing literature on starting and promoting CS projects. This poster will encourage more libraries to provide wider support for amateur STEM participation via CS projects.

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a service offered by libraries to supply patrons with materials which are not immediately available for lending. This could be for many reasons; the library might not own the item, the library may own a copy but it is already checked out to another patron, or the assignment of a required but expensive textbook spurs high demand for a particular title.