I love talking with my students, faculty, and colleagues, but sometimes I need an infusion of fresh ideas and adventures. That’s why I love summertime. Two major conferences take place in May and June (IASSIST and ALA). Plus everyone reserves the summer months for workshops and off-campus meetings. These may seem like frivolous things to an outsider (or my non-libraryland partner), but I am better able to do and more excited about my job after a fresh infusion of networking and learning.
Take for instance our workshop last week. UNCG’s Liaison Task Force has been asked to look at our liaison duties and develop a possible model for the future. The problem right now is that our workloads have increased dramatically, but we haven’t had an increase in staffing. Same as everywhere, right? Well, we’ve been talking about this issue for a while and haven’t decided anything. Luckily the task force was asked to benchmark with other schools. Rather than just calling up Wake Forest and asking them “Hey, how do you do it?” Steve Cramer called together a joint meeting with the key players from Wake Forest and liaisons from UNCG.
UNCG and WFU Liaison Meeting
The session started off with us brainstorming all of the things we do as liaisons onto sticky notes, and then Roz Tedford and I then grouped them into categories like consultations, faculty outreach, teaching, etc. Next we talked about our workloads with most tasks increasing in work time spent on them.
The category “keeping with the subject area”, which means reading key journals and staying abreast of new research, is an area in decline. Very unfortunate considering we are subject specialists too, in my opinion. I wonder if this is the area to examine in the future: a divide between the liaison (someone who does more outreach tasks or maintains gobi aerts) and subject specialists (someone who can teach upper-level classes and do in-depth consultations). This model wouldn’t be a return to the bibliographer approach; neither the liaison nor the subject specialist would be devoted to just collections. Of course you could have one person be both, but that is more difficult for the bigger departments. I guess the real key is having a flexible system rather than just assuming a one-size-fits-all approach to liaison roles.
The meeting wrapped up with a brainstorming session on what we can do about this issue. In my small group were two tech services librarians who are also liaisons. They expressed discomfort with their expanding duties as liaisons because they felt their primary job duties were suffering. This brought up the tension between specialization and generalization. At UNCG we tend to assume our liaisons are generalists who can move easily between collection work and teaching/patron interactions. It assumes someone with no teaching experience can (and should) teach. Likewise someone with no collections experience can and should do collection duties. The problem I have with that assumption is that it seems to denigrate those tasks. I am not the best collections person, I’m a pretty good teacher. I’ve been doing it for a few years now. Plus (and this is key) I’ve trained and reflected and trained more to get better at it. It is something that I see as being integral to my job so I’ve put extra effort into it. I can’t say the same thing about collections. Does that mean I can’t get better at collections? No, I can train and reflect in that area too. But then we get back to the workload/time issue. When do I get better at a skill I use sparingly? And would putting my time into collections even be useful to the library in the long run, especially if it takes time away from public services (what I do best)?
So, that is where the meeting ended. The conversation will continue this summer, but the important outcome is that we are sharing ideas and thinking through our strengths, our weaknesses, and where we have room for improvement. And that is what summertime should be about!
As I mentioned I have a lot on my plate this summer. Below are the upcoming workshops if you are interested. I will try to blog reflections on each.
May 14-16: Office of Undergraduate Research Workshop on integrating research into undergraduate classes
May 17: Business Librarianship in NC workshop
May 18: NCBIG workshop on assessing library instruction sessions
May 21: NC-LITe meeting (Library Instructional Technology group)
June 1: NCLA Government Resources Section meeting on ASERL and the Census
June 6-8: IASSIST in DC!
June 14: Metrolina Library Instruction Conference
June 22-25: American Library Association annual conference in Anaheim
And then in July I will take vacation. I will not check email. I will sit back and unwind. I promise.
