Nationwide, fewer than half of all doctoral students in the humanities finish their Ph.D.s within 10 years, and they take longer to complete their degrees than their peers in the sciences.

At Cornell, the numbers are more encouraging. The average time to complete a humanities degree is 6.7 years, and the library wants to help make the path even smoother.

With several campus partners, the library will hold an immersion program for graduate students in the humanities during winter break. Thanks to a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the program will offer practical advice and help foster a sense of community for humanities doctoral students in the second and third years of their programs, as they transition from student into teaching and dissertation research.

The Cornell Graduate School and the Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines are partnering with the library to host the program, and other campus units are involved in the collaboration. Faculty members will address the question of what it means to be a successful graduate student and researcher.

"In the humanities, second- and third-year graduate students stand to benefit from participating in a community of scholars as they begin serious research on their dissertations," said Barbara Knuth, vice provost and dean of the Graduate School. "The library's program will help coalesce resources from across Cornell that these students can draw on as they move forward in developing their scholarship."

The idea for the immersion program grew from a user-needs study conducted by Cornell and Columbia University Library as part of the 2CUL partnership. Researchers conducted interviews and focus groups with graduate students at both institutions and identified five ways libraries can contribute to their success: providing space, access to deep research collections and research assistance, fostering community, and nurturing the development of scholars.

"The library is in a perfect position to pull these different strands together. We can support graduate students' research and create a sense of community for them," said Kornelia Tancheva, director of Olin and Uris libraries and the Library Annex and the principal investigator on the grant.

Gwen Glazer is the staff writer and editor for Cornell University Library.