Outgoing co-chairs Marianne Alcorn and Margaret Schilt coordinated the ALL-SIS Faculty Services Committee Roundtable, held July 16, 2007, at the AALL Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Two listserv discussions held by the Committee during the year provided inspiration for the roundtable’s three topics. Adeen Postar, Marianne Alcorn, and Margaret Schilt each gave a short presentation and then facilitated small group discussions. Each group reported its ideas to the full roundtable.
Adeen Postar spoke briefly on services for new faculty, “new” including anyone new to the institution, be they visiting faculty, adjuncts, or new permanent faculty. Ideas contributed by the group discussion she moderated included preparing profiles of faculty preferences and research interests, as suggested by Sheri Lewis’ article on faculty services in the Law Library Journal, pairing experienced librarians with brand-new professors, and arranging for as many contacts with faculty as possible through mentor meetings, orientation involvement, work-in-progress presentations, and routine and frequent email communications.
Marianne Alcorn commented on the “Obsessive Reference Librarian,” building on the Committee’s vibrant December listserv discussion on boundaries in faculty services. Her group emphasized the importance of setting expectations and communicating about deadlines early on, communicating in person, giving interim status reports and having clear guidelines about the services offered. Problem areas noted by the group included time constraints, uncertain guidelines for faculty and the tendency of every request to become a “rush!” request.
Margaret Schilt asked whether we should deliver information and resources to faculty or train them to become more self-sufficient in their research. Her group concluded that a personal working relationship with a faculty member enables a librarian to make decisions on this on a case-by-case basis. One attendee questioned whether our role is to teach faculty, suggesting we should focus instead on providing research assistance as requested. On the other hand, training allows for self-sufficiency and may be preferred by younger, more technologically-savvy faculty. Faculty know their own research topics and preferences; training them to use resources on their own enables them to browse rather than delegating that task to librarians.
Joanne Dugan (jdugan@balt.edu), chair of the committee for 2007 - 2008, concluded the roundtable with a request for new ideas for listserv discussions in the upcoming year. Thanks to all who attended and contributed their thoughts and ideas.