Libraries Across the Sea: Using a Virtual Presence and Skilled Student Assistants to Serve Students Abroad

The authors discuss methods and challenges of supporting branch academic libraries overseas that are not staffed onsite by librarians or permanent staff. The authors present their two-pronged approach of creating a virtual presence carefully customized to the needs of the students studying abroad along with specially and highly trained student workers. The new program, grounded partly in theories from education and business management, is shown to have substantially improved both library services for our study abroad students as well as library student workers’ performance.