Comments on: Libraries and Alignment – it’s vital, vital, vital

By: Libreaction

Libreaction — Thu, 05 May 2011 13:15:33 +0000

Many Cambridge librarians have really embraced the personalisation concept/approach. Aside from myself at the business school, the English and Education faculty libraries are also making waves.

I’m really interested in this idea of fear as a driver and the effect that this might have on resources and services. Going to think about that some more.

By: Carolina

Carolina — Thu, 05 May 2011 11:15:21 +0000

Thanks for your response. How interesting that you’re doing this at Campbridge! I agree that ‘we’ can be over-cautious, and protective to an unhealthy extreme of traditional roles, spaces, and resources. This behavior is largely unexamined, to my awareness. In my own research I am learning that fear (of loss of funding) shapes the decisions made by some librarians, and that this or other drivers increase our capitulation to those who hold the purse-strings. That’s just speculation based upon observation and experience, and it’s a present reality which may stunt our growth despite our best intentions.

My next thought is that experimentation, even play, is crucial at this and other points in our development. I could have read about librarians in Second Life but until I got there myself I was not able to have those conversations about what it might mean. There is incredible value in new perspectives, and in cross-platform conversations about change and potential. Staying in the library means we keep our old shoes on, and they bind us to known realms. But one common, rather comment about librarians in SL was that it was a waste of time (“I have enough to do in my REAL life!”. This came from fellow librarians, meaning that we may be conflicted even before we craft our persuasive messages. But it also comes from our communities, sometimes from those with the loudest voices.

By: Libreaction

Libreaction — Thu, 05 May 2011 10:57:02 +0000

Hi Carolina, I think we librarians are too cautious about trying this (and lots of other stuff) and sometimes talk ourselves out of initiatives that *might* open the floodgates. My experience is that following our re-focusing on enquiry/database support and visibility outside of the Library – essentially re-focusing on the personal approach – that our workloads did rise but not so much that we couldn’t resource the volume of 1-2-1 interactions we were now engaged in. Having said that we had dropped what I considered to be too strong a focus on the desk in the Library, printed collections and other trad library stuff that only librarians care about and don’t necessarily add value to our offering, so we had some slack there. Its my suspicion that most libraries have more slack than they acknowledge even in these straitened times. Its about boiling your service down to those components that are truly valuable.

We’re using the embedded librarian approach here now too and plan to step this up in the coming academic year. Meg Westbury (my Projects Officer) presented at the symposium on her experience as an embedded librarian in a previous post and for her the positives outweighed the negatives. Something which I am sure will still hold true here.

Partnership, as you say is absolutely key and, like Ned, I completely agree with your eloquent descriptions in your previous comment.

The model we are forwarding will be assessed/evaluated throughout the book and there will be a specific chapter concentrating on impact and evaluation alone.