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103

Best Practices for Virtual Library 
Services
Three Small Libraries with Three Perspectives 
on Virtual Library Services
Elli Cucksey, Head Librarian, Hamma Library, Trinity Lutheran Seminary at 
Capital University
Susan Ebertz, Director of the Reu Memorial Library and Assistant Professor of 
Bibliography and Academic Research, Wartburg Theological Seminary
Stephanie Garrett, University Librarian, CDU Online Library, Catholic Dis-
tance University

ABSTRACT Panelists Elli Cucksey from Trinity Lutheran Seminary at Capital 
University, Susan Ebertz from Wartburg Theological Seminary, and Stepha-
nie Garrett from Catholic Distance University brought their experiences to 
the discussion of best practices for virtual library services. These three panel-
ists represent three points on the spectrum between programs that are fully 
online to mostly residential (or commuting) programs struggling to deliver 
expected virtual library services. Each panelist shared strategies for the way 
they try to provide virtual services given their different contexts. A question-
and-answer time at the end highlighted other best practices. This session 
was presented by members of Atla’s Small Libraries Interest Group (SLIG).

INTRODUCTION

Many of us scrambled to figure out virtual library services when the 
COVID-19 pandemic hit and our schools went to online classes. We 

PANEL PRESENTATIONS



104  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

created ad hoc services to fill in the gaps. We are now discovering 
that distance education is not going away. For those in small libraries, 
we know that staffing and budget make a difference in what we can 
offer. In this session presented by members of Atla’s Small Libraries 
Interest Group (SLIG), three librarians working to provide virtual 
library services for their small libraries share how to plan strategi-
cally and provide practical helps and best practices. 

INSTITUTIONAL SETTINGS

Wartburg Theological Seminary 
Susan Ebertz
Wartburg Theological Seminary is in Dubuque, Iowa, in the United 
States of America. Our full-time equivalency is approximately 200 
students. About two-thirds of our students are distance students. The 
rest are residential students. We have three degree programs, plus a 
certificate program leading to denominational rostering. The library 
is staffed by a director, a part-time paraprofessional, and students.  

Catholic Distance University 
Stephanie Garrett
This year, CDU celebrates its 40th anniversary. What began as an 
ecclesial directive to provide correspondence courses for students 
who did not live near a Catholic institution of higher learning has 
grown into a 100%-online university offering AA through MA degrees 
in Catholic theology. 

Per IPED’s 2021 Fall Enrollment Data, CDU’s peer group consists 
of 31 seminaries and religious colleges, and CDU is counted among 
the 62 schools designated as distance-only institutions — of which 
only 59 submitted age-related demographics for Fall 2021.

Courses are offered during five 8-week accelerated terms per aca-
demic year. All courses are taught asynchronously online using the 
Canvas Learning Management System (LMS).

We are aware that 53.8% of CDU’s students are over the age of 40, 
with just over 31% over the age of 50. This high percentage of digi-
tal immigrants makes CDU unique among both its peer-institutions 
and distance-only institutions. Whether comparing undergraduates, 
graduates, or both, CDU consistently serves more students over the 
age of 50 than its peer institutions, as well as a great many students 



PANEL PRESENTATIONS  105

who are 40–49 years old. There are three driving forces that lead 
students to seek a degree at CDU:

• They are already serving, either in paid or volunteer posi-
tions, at their churches and are seeking to advance or gain a 
paid position.

• They are deacons or religious brothers and sisters who 
have not previously earned a theological degree and are 
asked to do so by their diocese or religious order.

• They are older adults who have time and resources to pur-
sue a pet project degree.

Trinity Lutheran Seminary at Capital University 
Elli Cucksey
Trinity was first founded as the German Theological Seminary in 1830 
and in 1850 was chartered Capital University. While the renamed 
Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary (ELTS) was separated 
from Capital around 1960, the two operated jointly in many ways. In 
1978 ELTS and Hamma Divinity (of Wittenberg University) merged to 
form Trinity Lutheran Seminary. In 2018, Trinity once again became 
part of Capital University as an embedded seminary. This will allow 
the seminary to continue as a sustainable institution into the 21st cen-
tury. While enrollment the last few years has been much lower, we 
are stable in terms of numbers. We continue to become more diverse, 
however, in terms of age, family status, educational level, religious 
tradition, economic status, gender, and race. Each new population 
brings different needs, and we had only begun to try and figure this 
out when the pandemic hit in 2020. Now we realize that one thing 
each population will expect going forward is an increased availability 
of education and services delivered in an online format.

VIRTUAL LIBRARY SERVICES PROVIDED BY EACH SETTING

Wartburg Theological Seminary 
Susan Ebertz
We are both a residential and a distance seminary. Because of Asso-
ciation of Theological Schools (ATS) standards, we attempt to provide 
equity in library services for our distance and residential students. 
That said, we are also trying to increase our residential student popu-
lation. We are attempting to create library services that residential 
students would find attractive. Thus, the tension between equity for 



106  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

distance students and value added for residential students. We do 
not want to create a “sibling rivalry” of “you love them more than 
us.” We want to stress the idea of equity and not same. We take the 
particular situation and needs of the students in determining what 
particular services to provide or policies to create. 

Equity in Library Resources. We try to create equity in library re-
sources. Our goal is to provide students with all the required, recom-
mended, and suggested readings for all our degree and certificate 
courses. Part of this stems from the desire of our institution to make 
seminary affordable. Our physical reserve collection includes all 
these books. We try to provide equity for our distance students by 
providing access to the same “reserve” resources. We use the reserve 
module of our library catalog. Students are able to quickly find the 
links to the online resources for their classes.  

Our residential students have access to the physical collection in 
our library. They also have easy access to our entire collection and 
are able to browse the shelves. To provide equity for our distance 
students, we mail books in our circulating collection to them. We 
also provide a longer check out for them. All our students must be 
on campus during the first week of each semester. Books are due the 
next time the distance student is on campus. If the book is needed 
by another student, we will recall the book and the student will pay 
return postage. This allows access for all our students. 

Equity in Assistance. Residential students may walk into the li-
brary when the library is open and ask for help when needed. Library 
staff see the students on campus, when passing in the hall or before 
and after chapel. Students feel free to ask questions during casual 
encounters. Relationships are easy to build in the residential setting.  

It is a bit more difficult to provide easy access to or build rela-
tionships with distance students. We have a Zoom account for the 
library. It is on whenever the library is open. We encourage students 
to Zoom us whenever they need help. When a student Zooms us when 
the library is closed, an email is sent to the library. The next person 
who works at the library will contact the student to see how we may 
help. Zoom has been a great way to see our students and interact 
with them. The share screen feature allows us to provide help easily. 
During orientation we emphasize using Zoom. We also use email to 
provide assistance to our distance students. We have also zoomed 
with our residential students when they have found it more conve-
nient that coming to the library. 



PANEL PRESENTATIONS  107

We have a course site in our learning management system. The 
course site has our Zoom link to the library prominently featured, 
link to our catalog, links to our databases and resources, and other 
information. Students know that they can go here for their needs. 
We highlight our site during library orientation. 

Equity in Instruction. As I mentioned earlier, all our students need 
to be on campus the first week of each semester. We try to provide 
orientation and instruction during this week. We also have short 
workshops during the semester both in-person and via Zoom. For 
students who are asynchronous, we record the sessions and post 
them on our course site. We have discovered that students who are 
enthusiastic about a service do the best workshops and videos.  

Equity in creating place/community. For residential students it is 
easy to create a library space conducive for learning and community. 
Chairs are placed in small groupings. Tables are available for group 
study. We have a puzzle table that allows students to build commu-
nity with each other. We have book readings and pizza parties.  

Creating place for distance students is a bit more difficult. We try 
to include them in various ways. For example, we have monthly dis-
plays. We send out emails with pictures of the display and the list of 
books (with links) that are displayed. Distance students have com-
mented about how much they appreciate this. We also do a similar 
thing for our new book display. We have thought about putting a 
Zoom station near the puzzle table so that distance students may 
interact with residential students while putting together a puzzle. 

We continue to think of ways that we can provide equitable ser-
vices for both our residential and distance students through our re-
sources, assistance, instruction, and place.

Catholic Distance University 
Stephanie Garrett
Working in the asynchronous online-only environment and serving 
a student base that mainly consists of digital immigrants means the 
CDU Online Library continually strives to demonstrate relevance 
and create presence to provide information literacy instruction and 
writing support.

When I first arrived at CDU, I had two prompt realizations. First, 
there was little institutional understanding of the role the library 
plays in student success. Second, there was a complete lack of knowl-
edge of what “information literacy” means in the academic library 



108  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

setting. This lack of understanding was due in part to the position of 
librarian being instituted to meet ATS accreditation requirements 
less than 10 years ago. Before coming to CDU in 2015, my predeces-
sor, the first CDU librarian, had just returned to the US after 16 years 
of working in European libraries and archives. Academic libraries in 
Europe did not adopt the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy 
until 2018. Information literacy as we understand it had never been 
part of her professional development.

Another challenge came from the instructors’ reliance on out-
dated publications and web resources. Getting buy-in from these 
stakeholders has not been difficult. However, changing their habits 
and getting them to update their syllabi and course modules has been 
more challenging as it requires instructors to change their habits.

A lack of discoverability and accessibility in the previous ver-
sions of the online library meant that our students, who often have 
the financial means, simply buy the books they wanted to use for 
research, or relied on popular Catholic media available on the web. 

I came to CDU as an early career librarian with an extensive back-
ground in business administration and nonprofit management. I 
spent my first three months listening to students, faculty, and staff, 
reviewing ALA and ACRL’s Guidelines for Higher Education, Distance 
Education, and the Information Literacy Framework, and question-
ing library mentors about library policies and procedures. 

After completing a SWOT Analysis, creating a document on the 
role of the library in an academic institution, and drafting the li-
brary’s first ever policies and procedures manual, I set to work shar-
ing that information with the university’s leadership and faculty 
chairs, and pretty much anyone who made eye contact with me.

Simple purchases such as Oxford Reference’s Dictionary of the 
Christian Church gave many instructors access to a longed-for re-
source. Posting Atla’s “How to Search” videos in the online library 
helped increase student understanding of why their natural lan-
guage searches failed to return relevant results. Offering writing 
support provided the opportunity to teach proper citation proce-
dures and introduce the concept of “Scholarship as Conversation.”

In November 2021, I was given the opportunity to appear before 
the Board of Trustees’ academic committee. Leveraging my business 
experience, I showed up with a presentation that included the SWOT 
Analysis, a strategic plan that aligned with the institution’s strategic 
plan, and baselines and benchmarks for library assessment. While 



PANEL PRESENTATIONS  109

these are standard expectations at most institutions, at CDU this was 
new knowledge that repositioned the library from necessary evil to 
essential services.

“Creating Presence” was our primary task, while providing infor-
mation literacy and writing instruction.

We examined what it means to be fully online. In the online en-
vironment, face-to-face is only a small fraction of “presence” with 
students. We attacked these questions by using the Community of 
Inquiry model. People generally have a different understanding of 
“presence” than what we must do in the online environment. The 
Community of Inquiry model divides presence into three categories: 
cognitive, social, and teaching.

What constitutes effective social, cognitive, and/or teaching pres-
ence for a matriculating high school student differs from what reso-
nates with students over the age of 50, and what is expected from the 
40–49 age bracket. Younger students are more likely to be unwilling 
to admit they need help with research and writing, while older stu-
dents do not want to admit their struggles with learning technology. 

Our instructors have a well-groomed path to follow the Commu-
nity of Inquiry model when it comes to developing teaching content 
for the LMS, lesson plans that set parameters for discussions, and 
engagement expectations for students.

How can we create or maintain cognitive, social, and teaching pres-
ence as librarians when all course work is asynchronous?

One of the most important lessons we have incorporated into the 
Community of Inquiry model is an understanding that everything 
must be instantiated in multiple forms and platforms. And, you can 
never assume that students understand how to complete a digital task.

For example, a student seeking writing support was asked to email 
her paper to the librarian. Student understood how to upload her as-
signments in Canvas, but not how to attach a document to an email. 
As a result, she printed her paper and sent me 17 photos, using her 
cellphone, one photo for each page. This example is an important re-
minder that many students are more comfortable using their phones 
than their computers.

The Cognitive Presence is the academic content that engages the 
mind of the student. Through the CDU Online Library absolutely ev-
erything is virtual. There are no handouts or physical books to give 
students. The library started as a list of hotlinks and has grown to a 
Canvas Module, and now a LibGuides content management system 
site. Because we now understood that the entire presence of the li-



110  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

brary was digital, I was able to re-allocate $14,000 to get a Discovery 
Box and more databases.

There is a lot of overlap in activities that create social and teach-
ing presence. With Social presence, we are referring to the ability to 
project your personal identity in the online community. This takes 
all kinds of forms, but it amounts to finding your voice in digital com-
munications from emails to newsletters (MailChimp, Canva, Snagit, 
even Bitmoji). CDU also offers other fee or low-cost online tools like 
Populi News Feed, Pronto, and Canvas Introduction Bombs.

Teaching Presence is the design, facilitation, and direction of both 
the social and cognitive processes to create meaningful and educa-
tional learning outcomes. To achieve these, we use term presenta-
tions set up as LibGuides, Canvas Embeds, Virtual Research Instruc-
tion, and Online Writing Services. At CDU we have experimented 
with and found great value in services like Zoom and YouTube. 

Trinity Lutheran Seminary at Capital University 
Elli Cucksey
Hamma Library is at the beginner end of the virtual library servic-
es spectrum. In preparing for this session TLS gave a good deal of 
thought to what exists about presence in person and what we hope 
to carry over to the online environment. That would include things 
like the ability to find the librarian or staff member to help us, or to 
browse the collection for serendipitous discovery of resources. We 
have (and hope to keep) the ability to ask questions and get them 
answered as they arise. In person we can come together in groups 
to facilitate the formation of community. In person, almost by ac-
cident, we become more aware of the questions, struggles, and tri-
umphs of other students, and losing that to an online environment 
would be a great loss.

Further reflecting on the realities of our current online presence 
attempts we are aware that students sometimes struggle to know 
how or who best to contact for help. We are acutely aware that many 
students battle with information overload within the databases, even 
as they are also only aware of a few of the available resources. We 
recognize that many students are putting off questions and some-
times to not ask them at all. There is often a feeling of isolation and 
disconnectedness from the institution, a lack of community. This last 
part contributes greatly to students remaining unaware that they are 
experience completely normal struggles.



PANEL PRESENTATIONS  111

So, in the conversations leading up to this group discussion, Susan 
and Stephanie were extremely helpful in helping Hamma Library be-
gin to realize what needs to be done. Going forward we have plans to 
double our efforts to make the library’s availability known and blast 
contact information. We will be working with our system’s manager 
at Capital to foster more browsability in cataloging while we rework 
instruction to include better search strategies. Since so many of the 
residential students work in the library, we will increase efforts to 
get them to be trained reference assistants so that they can help with 
online inquiries and in person reference. We will increase our ef-
forts to find real time communication methods to create and foster 
better community, and this includes students and faculty and staff. 

As we think about these goals, we break it down to the same goals 
Stephanie and Susan had. We want to demonstrate our relevance in 
the library, create presence for students to find what they need, and 
provide information literacy and writing instruction. 

QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION

A robust question and answer session followed the panelist presen-
tation. 


