Academic Library Services to Graduate Students Interest Group

We are doing a short survey with our graduate students about library services and want to offer a raffle and prize as an incentive to participate. Does anyone have suggestions for prizes? I was thinking about a Visa gift card so they could use it for groceries, gas, or meals, but am open to other ideas. Thanks in advance!

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Brianna Hughes
STEM Reference and Instruction Librarian
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
She/Her/Hers
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Hi Brianna,

I know one of the issues with giftcards can be that many universities either no longer allow you to use departmental budgets or P-cards to buy them, or make it extremely challenging with tons of hoops to jump through.  If you have a way around that issue, I think they're potentially really great!

That said, some options I've had luck with include:

• Owala water bottles (I had no idea the cult following these things have prior to our offering them - especially if you snag one of the limited release colors/patterns)
• University-branded blankets, pillows, scarves, hats, etc.
• Meal plan flex bucks/vouchers (similar to giftcards, but often easier to purchase)

Hope you have good participation!

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Andrew Yager
Access Services Manager
University of Maryland, College Park
He/Him/His
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We've done a similar survey at our Welcome Bash in the fall for the last five years and have had to get creative on the prizes. Here are some that have been pretty well received:

• Printing funds - if students have to pay for printing, a prize of $10 or $20 dollars of printing funds goes pretty far
• Reserved study room - we have some dedicated spaces for students to check out for a quarter while they are working on a dissertation or thesis; we've given one of these to the winning student, for the quarter of their choice for the upcoming school year (and they're not required to be working on a research paper).
• I'll second the swag recommendation - we reach out to our Student Affairs office, and they'll often give us some swag to use as a prize, so it doesn't cost the library anything.
• Our campus gym and sports center donated time on their sports simulator as a prize for us to give out.
• Gift cards for local restaurants, especially the ones on campus (with the caveat that gift cards can be complicated, as someone else in the replies stated).

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Adoree Makusztak
Reference & Instruction Librarian
Loma Linda University
She/Her/Hers
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