service

More Than Just Meetings: Thinking about Service to the Institution

Today was a Friday full of meetings for me that mostly took place outside of the library. I started out in the morning at the monthly(-ish) meeting of my college’s General Education Committee, along with other faculty and administrators from departments across the college. The college where I work is just beginning our preparation for an accreditation visit in a couple of years, so today we worked in small groups to consider the General Education course offerings for our students (among other tasks). After a brief stop in my office to answer a bit of email and grab my backpack, I hopped the subway to travel to my university’s central office for a training session on the new procedures for Chairs of the Faculty Student Disciplinary Committee on each campus. Lucky for me (and my fellow midday subway commuters), the second meeting came with lunch.

In my time as an academic librarian, both as Instruction Coordinator and as Chief Librarian, I’ve done and continue to do a fair amount of academic service work outside of the library. I’ve blogged previously about my work directing a major grant-funded project at my college. Though my current service load is not nearly as heavy as it was then, it’s definitely the case that college and university service commitments can take me out of the library for chunks of time. And it can sometimes be challenging to balance service responsibilities with library work.

Despite the time management challenges (and I readily confess that I’m looking forward to a meeting-free weekend), there’s much to value in college and university service for academic librarians. In joining a couple of college and university committees fairly soon after I started at City Tech I was able to learn a lot about how the college and university work. Many of the committees outside the library involve decisions and processes that involve or affect the library. For example, at my college all proposals for new courses and programs go through our College Council (like a Faculty Senate) Curriculum Committee. While there is a form within the proposal package that each library subject specialist completes, it’s also useful for library faculty to see the inner workings of the curriculum process and to help evaluate proposals. Beyond curriculum and collections, college service can help familiarize library faculty with the processes that affect students in their careers at the college. At our Reference and Circulation Desks we field lots of questions from students that don’t technically have to do with library services and resources — especially for new students who might not be sure where to go to ask a question, our service desks can be a first stop.

College service especially can be an opportunity to meet faculty and staff in departments and offices outside of the library. My college does a great job in orienting new faculty, which usually results in a strong cohort of folks who’ve been hired around the same time. But service commitments can offer the chance to meet faculty in all departments and at all ranks — from untenured Assistant Professors to tenured Professors with a deep institutional memory. This can be useful in our library work as we consult or partner with faculty around library services and resources. And, if you’re in a tenure-track or promotable position, committee work can introduce you to some of the folks who may be on the evaluation committees when you put in for tenure or promotion. In my personal experience it’s a relief to walk into that promotion interview and see a few familiar faces around the table.

What kinds of extra-library service are you expected (or do you sign up) to do at your job? What have you learned in your college service that’s useful for your library work and career? Drop us a line in the comments.

Navigating (New) Relationships with Faculty: Valuing Service

I start my first professional position in less than a month. I repeat: less than a month! I’ll be one of three Information Literacy Librarians on Davidson College’s team. I have been thinking about what the transition will be like a lot lately and one topic really continues to stick with me, worry me, and challenge me. That topic is the idea of building and fostering relationships, not just with my fellow librarians but also with faculty.

The on-campus interview is so imperative for figuring out fit, not just for the employer, but also for the candidate. The older I get, the more I realize how important it is to not just to like the people I work with but also to have respect for them, share values with them, and have the capacity to learn from them. Moreover, if I don’t have a direct supervisor that will mentor me, advocate for me, and evaluate me fairly, I’m not sure any amount of money will make me a happy employee. I was lucky enough to find the right environment at Davidson.

Yet, thinking beyond my tiny department often makes me anxious. One of the great things about Davidson College is its faculty. I won’t be explicit here but when I was interviewing, I often found myself drooling over some of the accomplishments of faculty there. One example is the creation and development of a digital studies program, which makes critical analysis and ethical consideration of technology and its role in our lives a priority. The digital studies website lists the following as goals: “procedural literacy, data awareness, network sensibility, entrepreneurial thinking, iterative design, digital citizenship, information preservation and sustainability, and the ethical use of technology.” Talk about a librarian’s dream! It’s heartening to see these topics integrated into the curriculum in a meaningful way.

Nevertheless, it’s naïve to think that two or three faculty members’ values represent the majority. Moreover, even though I know this department does awesome work, how do I even reach out? Do I bank on healthy relationships already being established? (This isn’t always guaranteed. Sometimes new professionals actually have to spend time re-building relationships that were previously broken.) Do I go out of my way to schedule an appointment or audit one of their classes? Or do I take a more passive approach? I know that I might be complicating this a little bit, but I think this is a valid concern many new librarians face. New librarians in almost all areas, from data management to instruction, have to work with faculty and we have to start somewhere.

A better question I might ask goes beyond just establishing a relationship, one where the faculty member e-mails me once a semester to ask that I “demo the databases,” but also asks how I establish a fruitful, collaborative partnership where my work is seen as complementary and necessary to the instruction that that faculty member is doing. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, mostly because of the great conversation our profession has been having around this topic.

First and foremost, it is worth noting that this question isn’t just of concern to new librarians; even seasoned professionals are still grappling with how to improve their relationships with faculty and help faculty better understand their work. Maria Accardi’s new blog, Academic Library Instruction Burnout, addresses this issue often. In a recent post, “I do not think the Framework is our oxygen mask,” Accardi writes:

Despite my consistent and intensive and strategic outreach efforts, despite my partnering with faculty members who are indeed library champions who do get what we do and why, despite all of my efforts to chip away at the culture that marginalizes the very real teaching and learning work we do in the library, I’ll get a writing teacher sending his class to the library, with no notice, with a fucking scavenger hunt assignment that requires students to work with print reference books only. Please excuse me while I *headdesk* forever.

This frustration is echoed in Lauren Wallis’ post entitled “Smash all the Gates, Part 2: Professional Silenc*”:

This happens when you pitch an idea to a faculty member (perhaps at a campus schmooze event), and they act at least mildly interested–and then when you follow up via email, they never respond. It happens when a faculty member books an instruction session but then refuses to engage in a discussion about what that session should look like. It happens when faculty members don’t accompany their classes to library instruction. There are a lot of examples, all frustrating. All of these silences serve to maintain a situation where subject faculty have absolute control over their students, their assignments, and (to a certain extent) the content of library instruction sessions.

Why does this happen? Why are librarians disregarded, silenced, and misunderstood? Both of the writers above make it very clear that these problems in no way represent the majority of the faculty they work with. Still, why is this a reoccurring issue across campuses?

On June 9th, a Pratt SILS course taught by Jessica Hochman, LIS 697: Gender and Intersectionality in LIS, led a #critlib discussion on feminist contributions in LIS. There were some great conversations on how the feminization of LIS inhibits our work and creates stereotypes that “pigeonhole(s) us in one-shot service models”. There were also examples of librarians’ work and expertise being undervalued and sometimes even ignored. Here’s a great summary of why:

The feminization of our profession means that we are often only seen as a profession that serves. Our work is often undervalued or forgotten because service is undervalued and many times, forgotten. Our society sees service work as less than, below “making” or “creating”. In “Why I Am Not a Maker,” Debbie Chachra states that the problem with making is that it is “intrinsically superior to not-making, to repair, analysis, and especially caregiving—is informed by the gendered history of who made things, and in particular, who made things that were shared with the world, not merely for hearth and home.” And yet, “not making” is, as she says, is “usually not doing nothing,” and often involves doing things for others, including teaching and educating students.

Roxanne Shirazi’s brilliant talk, Reproducing the Academy: Librarians and the Question of Service in the Digital Humanities, offers a similar analysis. She states that once women start to make up to close to 50% of a workforce, that work is devalued and no longer pursued by men because it becomes seen as “women’s work” or service work. Within her talk, Shirazi begs the question, “do librarians work in service of scholarship or are they servile to scholars?” (original emphasis). She concludes that because librarians’ work reproduces the academy, through teaching students, organizing scholarship, and preserving information, we are often seen as less than and at the bottom of the hierarchy that is academia.

In essence, what is feminized, what is service, what is emotional and affective labor is devalued in our society not only because of the type of work it is but also because of who has historically done that work. Chachra notes, “Almost all the artifacts that we value as a society were made by the order of men.” Worse, the devaluing of our work is often connected to stereotypes of librarians and their function within the academy. In “Ice Ice Baby: Are Librarian Stereotypes Freezing Us out of Instruction?,” Pagowsky and DeFrain write, “Our stereotypes are not just annoying or humorous illustrations of us, they can seriously impact the work we do and the respect we are afforded” (emphasis mine).

Pagowsky and DeFrain find that librarians are in a difficult position, often seen as too “warm,” because of their helping and nurturing status but also often too “cold” or “sterile,” because of the librarian stereotype centered on uptightness and introversion. Moreover, they find that warmth is often seen as mutually exclusive to competence which creates a challenge for “librarians who want to both be taken seriously on campus… and yet who also endeavor to effectively reach students and show care.”

I’ll admit that I’m a little depressed and overwhelmed. Are you? I won’t pretend to offer any solutions here. I think it’s safe to say that this issue is much more complicated and complex than that. I think, though, that all of the insightful librarians that present these issues also leave the profession with something to build an answer upon.

I was originally going to title this post “Establishing and Advocating for Relationships with Faculty: Moving Beyond Service.” Huh, moving beyond service? Reading all of the blog posts, talks, and articles above made me realize that we don’t need to move beyond service. Service is why I joined this profession. I love that I get to broaden and expand my worldview every day simply by helping others do research about topics that I would have never been exposed to otherwise. I love teaching students about the intricacies of information creation and value. I love connecting faculty with information that will improve their research, their research practices, and maybe even the world. My love of service is not the problem. The problem is that service is seen as less than, below, unequal to other functions in the academy.

I realize now that this problem is pervasive to my work, but I can’t solve it alone. Can I solve it at all? Wallis asserts that there has to be some level of acknowledgement of “the fact that there are different power relations at play in these collaborative [faculty-librarian] relationships” and that these relations are “embedded in the hierarchies that make up academia, in both the social stratification of varying job ranks and the hierarchical classification of service and scholarship.” In addition, even though Pagowsky and DeFrain ask that librarians stop thinking of the warm/competent binary as mutually exclusive and instead think of their work and presentation on a spectrum between the two, they conclude that “our place on the spectrum is contingent, in part, on society as a whole changing its expectations.”

It would be absurd to claim that librarians must carry the full weight of changing how they are perceived and valued. The way our society devalues work that is seen as feminized, even though it is critical, central work, is not our fault. It is a structural issue that furthers the oppression of some communities and the power of others.

I think, though, that there has been a call for librarians to start advocating for themselves and the value of the work that they do. Angela Pashia, Kevin Seeber and Nancy Noe led a conversation at LOEX this year entitled “Just Say No: Empowering Ourselves and Our Expertise.” The session walked participants through why, when, and how they should say no to faculty and also gave them a space to practice saying no and reflecting on what that felt like. Here is the litmus test the presenters gave participants for whether or not they should say no:

But what does saying no really mean for our profession? Wallis suggests that when we always say yes, not only are we reinforcing “the exclusionary nature of academic Discourse,” while also “acting as gatekeepers while simultaneously accepting and perpetuating our own marginalization.” By saying no, are breaking down some of these barriers, little by little. We are practicing what we teach to students, that all voices in a conversation matter and that there is value in all different types of contributions.

This is not easy work. Wallis is right in her assertion that “coming out of silence means we will make some people angry.” But our profession will never be one of true partnership and engagement unless we break our silence. Advocating for our value and the value of our work will, unfortunately, continue to be a very necessary skillset. Wallis asserts that we will have to break our silence as a group, as an institution, as a profession for there to be progress. We will have to share successes (and criticisms) with each other, learn from others’ experiences saying no and then hopefully (eventually) heartily saying yes, and start a larger conversation that teaches all librarians—especially new librarians—that their work is worth advocating for and that they have the support needed to come out of decades of practicing silence.

This brings me to my final point. What advice would you share with the greater library community? When have you said no? How have you been empowered? What tips would you give to new professionals or librarians just starting at a new institution? How do you establish healthy partnerships with faculty members? How do you talk to faculty members that don’t understand the value of librarianship, information literacy, metadata, data management, digital scholarship, preservation, etc. etc.? How do you converse with faculty members that are champions of the library? How do you advocate for your time, resources, and expertise? How do you let help faculty and administration understand that service is central to the mission of your campus?

References:

Accardi, M. (2015, May 14). I do not think that the Framework is our oxygen mask. Retrieved from https://libraryinstructionburnout.wordpress.com/2015/05/14/i-do-not-think-that-the-framework-is-our-oxygen-mask/

Chachra, D. (2015, Jan 23). Why I am not a maker. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/why-i-am-not-a-maker/384767/

Pashia, A., Seeber, K., & Noe, N. (2015, May). Just say no: Empowering ourselves and our expertise. Presentation at the annual meeting of the LOEX, Denver, CO. Retrieved from http://www.loexconference.org/presentations/pashiaPresentation.pdf

Pagowsky, N. & DeFrain, E. (2014). “Ice ice baby: Are librarian stereotypes freezing us out of instruction?” In the Library with the Leadpipe. Retrieved from http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2014/ice-ice-baby-2/

Shirazi, R. (2014, July 15). Reproducing the academy: Librarians and the question of service in the digital humanities. Retrieved from http://roxanneshirazi.com/2014/07/15/reproducing-the-academy-librarians-and-the-question-of-service-in-the-digital-humanities/

Wallis, L. (2015, May 12). Smash all the gates, part 2: Professional silenc*. Retrieved from https://laurenwallis.wordpress.com/2015/05/12/smash-all-the-gates-part-2-professional-silenc/

Perks and Quirks of a Single Service Point

In my last post I talked a little bit about the Learning Commons that opened in August at my library, a major renovation that brought exciting changes to the first floor of the Main Library. Although I wasn’t here to see the “before,” the “after” is bright, shiny, and new. It’s an appealing place with a lot more space for students to study and work: there are plenty of computer stations and a variety of flexible study spaces, including 16 group study rooms. Another major new feature of the Learning Commons? The Service Desk.

The Service Desk is a consolidation of what were previously separate service points for circulation and reference into a single service point. During the day, there is typically a mix of people at the desk: a circulation assistant, a librarian or another library assistant, and a few student workers. The librarian staffing the instant message service is also on back-up for the Service Desk, in case it gets particularly busy.

I don’t have any insight to the development of the Learning Commons or the Service Desk, the choices made, or future plans – especially as a relatively new employee (I’ve been in this position for four months, and have been doing shifts on the Service Desk for less than two months). I can only speak from my own experience at the desk, and as with most things, I see an upside and a downside.

Good news first: I really like being out on the desk! I enjoy interacting with people, seeing how patrons use the library’s space and services, and finding out firsthand the kinds of questions people are asking. Since I haven’t done much instruction yet, right now this is how I see students the most. I think that interactions at the Service Desk can also be used to inform what I include in instruction sessions. On top of all that, every time I’m at the desk is an opportunity to get to know other people who work in the same building as me every day, but who I otherwise wouldn’t see very much if at all.

A single service point can create a better experience for library users, eliminating any question or confusion over where to ask for help. At our Service Desk, patrons can check items in and out, pick up Interlibrary Loan material, course reserves, and holds, get basic technology help, and ask anything from “where’s the elevator” to an in-depth reference question. It’s great for our users that they can know “this is where I go to ask for help in the library.”

Now here’s the downside, at least as far as I’m concerned: with a greater variety of questions and interactions handled at one desk, and fewer hours spent staffing the desk for any given individual, it can become more difficult to help patrons efficiently. So far I have been on the Service Desk about once a week for a two-hour shift, and it is more often the circulation aspect that I run into trouble with (sidenote: I personally don’t mind handling circulation transactions, where librarians previously would not have done this at the reference desk). When something less common comes up – creating a community borrower card, for example – it may have been weeks or months since I have last done that process, if ever. With less hours spent at the desk, there is less hands-on practice performing circulation processes, which leads to me getting frustrated when I can’t remember how to do something.

I must say, this is not for lack of training: I have been trained on the circulation processes that I need to know, there are opportunities for additional training sessions, and instructional documents are easily accessible online. Also, because of the variety of employees that staff the desk, no matter what comes up, there is usually someone there that can handle it. If I don’t know the answer or don’t remember how to do something, someone else will, and I can use that as a learning opportunity for myself. However, that doesn’t make those situations any less frustrating for me when they do arise.

The consolidated service desk is new for everybody, so I’m sure that time and experience will work towards smoothing out bumps in the road. But I also have to remind myself that I’m still pretty new here and have less prior knowledge about the library and collections. I’m taking things in and learning about my new environment, and to be honest, there is a lot to learn and it can be difficult to remember even simple things! The other day, somebody asked me “what floor is this call number on?” and I had to check the floorplan to be sure – that’s totally fine, but I also wish I could remember more of those little things without having to check the website or ask someone else.

While out on the desk earlier this week, I came up with a way to work through the downsides I’ve encountered. Whenever I learned something new or something came up that I felt I needed a reminder on, I jotted down a quick note – starting with the call number range on each floor.

To be clear, these notes are purely for my personal gain and not intended to be a record of any kind or contribute to our Service Desk stats. I’ve found in the past that I can remember something better once I’ve written it down, so by taking some quick notes when I’m at the Service Desk, I hope that these bits of information will stick in my mind better. If I had to create a community borrower card for somebody that day, I would have taken notes on that as well.

I like the fact that I learn something new whenever I staff the desk, whether it be about our online resources, common student needs, or how to troubleshoot technology (you may notice several points about a certain scanner in my notes above). I’ll continue to take these notes for now, in addition to reviewing the instructional documents for areas where I know I could use a refresher. I’m optimistic that this will help me retain more information as I continue to learn about my library, and assist patrons more efficiently and effectively.

A Personal Touch

Earlier this week the Chron reported on the new Personal Librarian Program at Drexel University. Every incoming freshman student this year has been assigned an individual librarian, and students are encouraged to contact their personal librarians throughout the semester whenever they have questions about doing research or using the library. While Drexel is not the only academic library offering this service, the publicity around the Drexel program has inspired lots of conversation this week among librarians I know both in person and online via Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.

It definitely seems like there has been a rise in individual services to students at academic libraries over the past few years. Some libraries are experimenting with librarian office hours; sometimes they’re held in the library, and sometimes a subject librarian will offer consultations in an office in each discipline’s department. Many libraries promote individual consultations by appointment with reference librarians for students and faculty. We started offering this service at my library last semester and it’s working well. It’s been great to be able to offer more in-depth assistance to students without feeling the pressure of the busy reference desk.

As an instruction librarian I’m used to interacting with students in a class, but working with many students at once is very different from a one-on-one interaction with a student. Maybe it’s just in the air, but more and more often I find myself thinking about ways to work with individual students. I think these services are so attractive to me because it seems like they would encourage stronger student engagement with research and critical thinking. No matter how relevant (e.g., assignment-based), timely, interactive, or entertaining a classroom instruction session is, it can be difficult to fully engage every student in the room. But working with students one-on-one removes some of the obstacles–like fear of asking questions in front of the entire class–and lets us work at each individual student’s level of experience and need.

I have to admit that the numbers are a bit scary. The ratio of Personal Librarians to incoming freshmen at Drexel is about 1:100. How can academic libraries at colleges with a different ratio–say, 1:500 or even 1:1,000–offer these kinds of individual services? One thought is to start small, with students in a specific discipline or major, and I’m sure there are other groups of students that would work well for a personal librarian project pilot. And assessment should help us evaluate the impact of individual services as compared to group instruction, and help us decide whether to offer a personal librarian program. (Assessment is on my mind this week as I’ve been making my way through the new ACRL Value of Academic Libraries Report, but that’s a post for another day.)

If you’re experimenting with individual services in your library, what have your experiences been?

Reflections on Service

By now I’m sure everyone’s seen Thomas Benton’s article in praise of academic librarians in last week’s Chronicle of Higher Education. It’s getting a lot of link love in the blogosphere, and was in the top five most viewed and emailed articles on the Chron’s website early this week. I love being a librarian and reading positive things about librarianship, and I enjoyed reading Benton’s piece. The whole article’s worth a read but a few sentences near the beginning sum it up nicely:

[M]ore than any other class of professionals in higher education, librarians possess a comprehensive understanding of the scholarly ecosystem. They know what’s going on across the disciplines, among professors and administrators as well as students. No less important, they are often the most informed people when it comes to technological change–its limits as well as its advantages.

The article’s comments were mostly positive, too, but scanning through them there was one in particular that caught my eye. The commenter suggests that faculty and administrators value librarians because of the work we do for them which, in this commenter’s mind, equates librarians with “glorified research assistants.”

One of the reasons this comment struck me is that it speaks to something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Librarianship is a service-oriented profession — service to our patrons, whether faculty, students, or staff, is a core value for many academic librarians. We want faculty and students to ask us questions about library and research resources.

However, sometimes it can be a fine line to walk between facilitating access to and use of library resources, and slipping into an assistant role as mentioned by the Chron commenter. Does our goal to assist with research in our institutions ever cross the line to acting as a research assistant? What does “service” really mean in an academic library?