The authors describe difficulties pertaining to discipline-specific discourse and identity among collaborators during the process of revising the information literacy component of a first-year writing program. Hardesty’s term “faculty culture” offers a frame through which to understand resistance and tension among otherwise engaged faculty and situates this experience within the uncomfortable history between faculty and librarians who may be perceived as “inauthentic” faculty. The authors suggest ways to improve communication between librarians and writing program faculty when collaborating on infor-mation literacy instruction.
Creating workflows that involve the work of multiple departments within a large organization can be challenging, especially when the procedure itself is complex and involves a number of stakeholders. This paper describes and evaluates a collaborative project to develop an interdepartmental workflow for the digitization of unique library materials in a mid-sized academic library. The project includes an automated project management and materials tracking system. Project development involved three separate departments with different reporting channels. In order to navigate this difficulty and manage the large size of the project, a visual planning technique that included graphical representations of current and proposed workflows, as well as implementation timelines, was used. This visual planning technique allowed the project team to clearly organize their thoughts and plans and proved helpful in soliciting buy-in from stakeholders. The paper will outline the collaborative planning process, addressing the rewards and challenges of tackling such a project within a large organization, and present lessons learned for others attempting similar endeavors.
Academic libraries are attempting to manage growing collections of diverse electronic resources in a chaotic environment of evolving standards and systems. The transition from a print-dominated resource environment to an electronic one has complicated the decision-making process. Current discourse primarily focuses on meeting patron needs and has distracted researchers from looking at librarian needs. The authors discovered that librarians want a better understanding of the nature, extent, and diversity of electronic resources for decision making, assessment, and accountability. Drawing from the collaborative methods and design philosophies of other disciplines, this paper outlines an approach to leveraging Web 2.0 philosophy and Business Intelligence techniques to address these needs. This approach will serve as a guide for academic librarians to transcend their current practices in order to develop innovative, collaborative, and holistic approaches to the joint stewardship of library electronic resource collections.
This article describes an academic library’s experience developing and sustaining a literary festival as a collaborative effort. The Eastern North Carolina Literary Homecoming (ENCLH) is a year-long program of events that celebrates the culture and literature of North Carolina. With activities in 6 counties located in the mid-coastal region of North Carolina, the program provides a rich opportunity for people of this area to learn about and meet North Carolina artists. In the past the program was restricted to artists with connections to Eastern North Carolina, but the program is expanding its coverage in 2011. The program theme for 2011 will focus on the impact of environmental literature on social change. This event has been a successful collaboration between a number of cultural institutions, with Joyner Library at East Carolina University serving as the lead. Federal, state and private grant funding has been secured for several years. Key players in the mix include the editor and staff of the North Carolina Literary Review, along with staff from the local public library and members of the ECU faculty as well as librarians from other regional schools.
This article reports on the design and findings of a project concerning the feasibility of a collaborative model to benchmark the marketing of electronic resources in institutions of higher education. This international project gathered 100 libraries to move in lockstep through the process of a typical marketing cycle that included running a brief marketing campaign and reporting findings to each other. The findings show good reasons and strong support for this kind of model.
Technologies like library course pages and Facebook offer new opportunities for librarians and faculty to collaborate, integrate library content and services into student work spaces, and support and expand student learning. During spring semester 2011, a library course page was developed for a graduate-level education class and sent to the instructor for review. That led to comment and expansion of content on the course page. After this interaction, the librarian joined the course Facebook group to explore this venue as an embedded librarian. This article includes the librarian’s and instructor’s perspectives about this work. Collaborative use of social networking tools offers promise for a deeper and a wider range of learning opportunities by potentially enlarging the range of participants in the learning process and by moving class conversations beyond the limits of traditional course management systems.
This article discusses a successful collaboration between multiple subject specialist librarians, the University Archivist and a faculty member teaching an undergraduate course in documents-based social science research. This collaborative partnership allowed for each subject specialist to expose students to specific information literacy skills they needed to be successful in their class. The authors used pre- and post-assessments to gauge student comfort level in conducting library research, as well as a rubric to assess the annotated bibliography of a student’s final research paper. The data from these assessment tools are analyzed and the results discussed. The data indicates that students benefited from the specialized instruction they received.
Recent developments in scholarly publication and the new directions being pursued in both humanities departments and libraries in the production of digital content provide opportunity for scholars and libraries to explore new models for working together to produce and disseminate scholarly materials. We offer as a first step toward a model for publication the case of Opuscula: Short Texts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (OSTMAR), a hybrid form of publication that leverages the university library infrastructure to create a platform for the publication of scholarly primary materials, an area of publication formerly reserved for the commercial press. This model is dependent on close collaboration between scholar and librarian, the nuances of which are outlined in this paper.
The research purpose was to learn about existing joint use public-academic libraries in Canada including their establishment, structure, benefits, and challenges and to determine the requirements for successful partnerships. Following a literature review, a short survey was conducted to gather data on the number, location, and types of public-academic library partnerships. In-depth telephone interviews were then held with key personnel from joint use libraries to learn more about the libraries and the nature of the partnerships. The research surfaced three unique examples of joint use public-academic libraries. In addition, key requirements for successful partnerships that were posited through the literature review were supported by the research data – commitment, a shared vision, and a need that requires fulfillment. Possible limitations of the research are the initial survey’s reliance on responses from academic library directors and the survey timing. There is limited information about partnerships between Canadian public and academic libraries and no single document that brings together data on partnerships across Canada. With this study, public and academic libraries will learn of successful joint use Canadian public-academic libraries along with the key requirements for sustainable partnerships.
Well-being of individuals and communities depend on accessibility to accurate health information. A recent study shows that many communities in regions of Nigeria lack accessibility to this information. Building on the success of partnerships between librarians and health care workers in the delivery of health information in other parts of the world, the Nigerian situation could be greatly improved through a number of strategies, as suggested in this article.
This article uses the co-teaching experiences of workshop instructors at the University of Nevada, Reno Libraries as a basis for an in-depth exploration of the factors that lead to successful co-teaching arrangements among librarians and other information professionals. The experiences of these instructors demonstrate that co-teaching can provide numerous benefits: It can enhance the learning experience for students, it can provide a method for refining teaching skills, it can promote successful collaborations across departments, and it can bring innovative ideas into the classroom. Drawing on collaboration research from the Wilder Foundation, this study found that successful co-teaching relationships are characterized by factors related to environment, partnerships, process and structure, communication, purpose, resources, and external/long-term considerations. Within these seven areas, guidelines for successful co-teaching relationships have been formulated for use by librarians and other information professionals.
Following an energizing reorganization of the first floor, the University of Idaho Library sought additional strategies to support student learning and success. Building on previous successful collaborations with the Dean of Students Office, the Library and Tutoring Services created a model to offer peer-tutoring services in the library. Several philosophical and practical guidelines were considered, and implementation of the service, while challenging, was ultimately successful. Strategies for proposing, building, and maintaining similar partnerships with student services units are discussed, with best practices offered for other institutions seeking similar collaboration.
In the past few years, academic libraries have faced many significant challenges. Due to the financial crisis, the cuts to library collections have caused an evolution in the philosophy of collecting, accessing, and delivering information. Financial constraints have resulted considerations of a “just-in-time” collection philosophy, where libraries have explored new models of collecting information and delivering content to their patrons. Collaborative Librarianship caught up with Marvin Pollard to discuss this issue.
On a regular basis, Nicole Engard contributes to Collaborative Librarianship. In this article, Nichole Engard discusses collaborative leadership.
