Reposted from the J. Willard Marriott Library blog.

Since the inception of the Utah Asia Campus (UAC) in 2014, the J. Willard Marriott Library has been involved in providing support to UAC, but that support was not always consistent. Luckily, in 2023, what started as a Marriott librarian’s spontaneous visit to South Korea for a friend’s wedding led to a resurgence of support that has now evolved into a thriving relationship.

In 2023, the Marriott Library formed a UAC Library Support Team and began to reimagine what library services and support should look like for the Korea campus. That fall, a request came in to teach a library session via Zoom for the first-year engagement class at the UAC. One librarian, Dorothy Terry, was headed to South Korea, a place she’d spent three and a half years living and teaching English, to attend a friend’s wedding, and luckily, the dates aligned. During that visit, Terry got a glimpse into student life, a better understanding of the faculty’s knowledge of library resources and the differences between the two campuses. Upon her return and report out, library leadership tentatively decided to continue these trips with the goal of building relationships, teaching library information literacy classes and better understanding the needs of the campus.

In September 2024, during the 10th anniversary of the UAC, Sarah Shreeves, the Alice Sheets Marriott Dean of Libraries, and Terry traveled together to South Korea to celebrate the anniversary and to teach and meet with faculty and students to understand collections and instructional needs. This trip sealed the deal. Shreeves decided that the library would send two librarians each semester for two weeks to conduct classes and support the UAC.

“In visiting the Incheon Campus, it became very clear to me that our librarians could make a real difference for the students,” explained Shreeves. “Providing in-person instruction and research support every semester means that students can develop relationships with the librarians and feel comfortable approaching them virtually when our librarians are not on the UAC campus.”

Since then, the Marriott Library has sent five librarians (Terry, Shane Wallace, Allie McCormack, Genifer Snipes and Mary Aagard) on three different trips to teach information literacy classes, consult with students on research projects and meet with faculty on collection needs. McCormack, a librarian in the Marriott’s Special Collections, brought scans of rare materials into UAC classes to allow students to conduct detailed primary source interpretation exercises. She also collected materials for Special Collections, which has enhanced the library’s holdings.

The Marriott Library now holds classes for archaeology, writing and rhetoric, psychology, the writing center, business, communication, urban ecology, history and quest programs on the UAC campus. UAC students now feel more comfortable asking for help with projects and research, and faculty drop in for information sessions and reach out for collections assistance. The semesterly visits to UAC have proven to be critically important for cultivating relationships with teaching faculty and staff, while giving the students a point of connection with the main campus in Salt Lake City. When the students come to the Salt Lake campus towards the end of their degrees, the librarians, especially Terry, are often the only people they know on campus.

“The work we do during these visits helps to decrease some of the anxiety students have around seeking assistance,” commented Terry. “It’s been incredible to connect with students on the Salt Lake campus after visiting with them in different classes at the UAC. Not only has the impact on students been great, but it has also helped us connect with Salt Lake campus students who go over for a semester or two and then return. At the core of what we do at the Asia Campus is building connections that hopefully last beyond a class visit.”