Annual Reviews

All statistics are based on the year April 1st 2017 to March 31st 2018.
Unless otherwise stated, statistics reflect services at all campuses and online.

Types of Questions Answered:

• We answered 15,540 technology questions (for example: “How do I create a graph in Excel?”).
• We answered 6,660 basic questions (for example: "“How do I find this book?”).
• We answered 3,996 directional questions (for example: "Where are the printers located?").
• We answered 685 complex questions (for example: "I need help finding scholarly articles for my research.").
• We answered 543 questions through our online help chat (for example: "How do I access resources from home?").

There was a 26% increase in total frontline questions asked over last year.

There was a 28% increase in total copyright-related questions asked over last year.

Teach Me Tech is our brand for the suite of services we provide to students and faculty to support technology use. With central locations, our historical support of technology and our collaborative, customer service driven approach, adding Teach Me Tech to our Library services was a sensible and exciting move.

Tech Tutors: Provide technology support.

Tech Loans: Include equipment like laptops and chargers.

Tech Bar: Located at our libraries for support and equipment loan. 

The Doon Tech Bar opened in October 2017 providing an easy to find, one-stop shop for Tech Tutoring and Loans. There has been a 307% increase in the number of questions answered by our Tech Tutors this year compared to last.

Our most popular items include:

• Chargers and plugs: 5,145 times borrowed
• Laptops: 4,079 times borrowed
• Calculators: 3,275 times borrowed
• Camera tripods: 211 times borrowed

To respond to the increase in traffic detailed below, we increased our operating hours at the Doon campus Library. In the Fall and Winter semesters, we are open until 10pm Monday to Thursday. Our library spaces were accessed 677,222 times over the last year.

• 44% increase in webpage views (484,712 views)
• 32% increase in evening and weekend traffic at Doon campus
• 12% increase in evening and weekend traffic at Cambridge campus

In 12 short months, we gathered, indexed and scanned the historical objects of the institution and implemented an online repository to honour Conestoga’s 50th anniversary. This digital discovery and preservation project now contains content that highlights the history, growth and evolution of our institution. Currently, ARC has 2,500 items in its collection including images, yearbooks, reports, and the student newspaper, The Spoke, dating back to 1973.
To access ARC visit: https://conestoga.core.ocls.ca/
 

Open Educational Resources (OER) are educational materials that permit you to use, modify and redistribute them free of charge. These materials can include textbooks, videos, images, lesson plans and more.
Numerous studies report that the high cost of textbooks is a detriment to student success. OER reduce this barrier to learning and can improve student performance. This past year, the College Libraries have collaboratively developed an Open Educational Resources Toolkit. The Toolkit helps faculty across the province understand and include OER in their curriculum.

As well, faculty consultations with our program liaisons have increased dramatically by 133% over this last year. Our Program Liaisons support faculty in many ways, including locating course resources. Much of this increase is due to the growing awareness of OER. This is a great benefit to our students.

Since 2016 Conestoga has helped students save at least $800,000 by using open access textbooks.

Looking for help with OER? Contact your Program Liaison and visit our Open Textbooks & OER page for more information.