We had a great discussion group in Orlando! Thank you everyone who attended. I've copied some notes to share from the discussion and included them in the meeting report below.
ACRL University Libraries Section
Current Topics Discussion Group
8:30-10 am, Sunday June 26, 2016
Agenda
I. Announcements
- ULS Social Saturday night at Taverna Opa - look for one around mid-winter meeting next year.
- Also join the ULS Facebook group “University Libraries Section of ACRL
- Twitter: @acrl.uls
- Volunteer opportunities:
- The volunteer form for ALA/ACRL committees is in late fall/ early winter, close to midwinter meeting. This is your opportunity to get involved in ULS. To volunteer Visit http://www.ala.org/acrl/membership/volunteer/volunteer. You will be asked to login using your ALA member ID and the password you created. Be sure that you are a current ALA/ACRL member before attempting to login.
e. ALA Connect Group (not super active) Current Topics Discussion Group
II. Featured discussion topic:
Jennifer Friedman, Assistant Director for Research Services at the USF Tampa Library gave an an overview of the ROLES (Re-Imagining Our Library Engagement Services) project at the University of South Florida.
Notes
Group was primed to look at the roles of liaisons and ready to change.
Importance of leading collaboratively because you are changing people,s jobs, and it will take a long time- at least a year.
All public services librarians, some tech services folks involved.
Question everything.
Broke into 4 teams. Plus a steering team who led each of the 4 teams. Met weekly for a month.
- Academic Needs (students and faculty)
- Curriculum (evaluate syllabi to see where research happens)
- Data gathering & analysis
- Models for liaison programs
- SWOT analysis: current liaison program
Used book:” assessing library liaisons"
Use Trello and have all minutes, tasks, results and notes from teams so everyone can read them.
Created a publishing and presentation plan for all the groups.
Really careful not to have overlap. Report back on the topics that are rising to top to ensure no one is focusing on the same topics.
Use "Smart Sheet" (software) to group questions.
Researching liaison programs from schools that have similar librarian to student ratio.
Rubric: goal, organizational role, liaison role.
Goal may be -attend a departmental mtg, or meet with 2 faculty members per semester...
The idea is to have a blueprint with possible things liaisons can do to engage faculty. Then decide for individual liaisons what are you planning to work on this semester?
How do you determine success? Failure is an option. If it failed, what did you learn from it?
Skills inventory of liaisons
- 80 different things in categories: basic, intermediate, and advanced. like software, programs, so for excel: I know how to open a file to I can use pivot tables. I can do command line searching, etc.
- Then do a database ad. Subject expertise inventory. In case someone is out or away.
Department relationship assessment
- students went to each departments website, put every faculty with a link to their faculty page, then all of the staff. Listed it in excel.
Assess relationships
- I've had no contact with this faculty.
- I've taught a class for them,
- I know them on a personal level.
- Will let them be strategic and help them identify one or two folks to cultivate relationships with. Keep in mind: what's in it for them?
Each team will come up with a final report and submit to the steering team. Then they will crate a model to discuss and comment.
Then have an implementation team.
Questions
Team size: 5-7 people, some overlap.
28 people on the teams total.
Master calendar of events with notes and suggestions for future.
Now use Trello for all committees in academic services. Before, folks were so busy they didn't share info well.
Data collection: capturing. Student id number. For an rcm model: resource cost model. What is the impact on each department?
Librarian engagement form: programmatic support (accreditation, etc.), instruction support, vendor calls, etc. to captur impact on their departments.
Tracking trends for technical and directional problems: scanner is problematic, direction questions that keep recurring, how do I renew online? Very helpful.
Using Smart Sheet for the liaison forms, and Google forms plug in (has an if then)
Liaison vs functional specialties
Book: assessing library liaisons, 2014. Great structure for rubric.
Attendees
Lisa Nickel William & Mary
Lavinia Busch Cal Arts
Rameka Barnes Texas A+M
Sha Towers Bayor
Stephanie Race University of north Florida
Brian Greene Northeastern Univ
Nicole Brown NYU
Catherine Soehner University of Utah
Jennifer Freidman University of South Florida
Susan Schreiner Pittsburg State University (Kan)
Ariana Santiago University of Houston
Barbara Lewis University of South Florida
William Weare TAMU
Jeff Steely Georgia State University
Joanne Helouvry Loyola Notre Dame
Sara Kuhn Monash University Malaysia