Evidence Synthesis Methods Interest Group

Help. I am stuck in the disconnect between my old-school librarian's dedication to customer service (read: cannot say no to someone who asks for my professional help) and the actual demands of my job, which is fast paced and perhaps places more emphasis on the librarian as faculty member than on librarian as service provider (btw, it's tenure track, & I'm already tenured).

• Do you have a rule of thumb you follow to determine if you have the bandwidth to join someone's research or evidence synthesis project?
  • E.g., do you have a limit on the number of unfinished projects you'll attach yourself to before you join another?
  • Do you ever choose NOT join someone's project, even if you do have the bandwidth?
• Then, how do you say no? I'm looking for actual wording here, hoping that if I practice saying what others say, I'll figure out how *I* want to say it.
  • Is there a pared-down service you offer instead of full participation on a team? Such as, "I cannot join your team right now, but I can spend one hour to critique your search strategy & return that to you," or something like that?
• If you choose not to join a project, do you try to find another librarian/info specialist who will?

Over the summer I did tell one SR group, "Your project sounds really interesting. However, if you want me to join, I won't be available until mid-September." And that worked--even though they were champing at the bit to get started in July, they waited for me.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'm pretty sure I've typed a version of this email several times over the past year and always deleted it. But surely I'm not the only one struggling with project overload, right???

Jane

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Jane Yatcilla
Health & Life Sciences Information Specialist
Purdue University Libraries
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We also used a tiered model.  https://researchguides.baylor.edu/systematicreviews/support

 

Our group consists of liaison librarians who are helping out with systematic reviews so our time is limited as systematic reviews are only a small part of our jobs.

We also worked out with our supervisor what our limits are; and she will back us up if needed.

Our limits for full collaboration are

Education Librarian:  1-2/year, no more than 1 at a time

Physical/Natural Sciences Librarian (me):  2-4 a year, only 1 at a time

Engineering (and temporary Health Science) Librarian:  2-4 a year, only 1 at a time

Health Science Librarian (hiring now):  4-6 a year, only up to 2 at a time

Nursing Librarian (under the College of Nursing not the library):  ??

 

We just simply state, that we are limited in the number of reviews we can collaborate on; and people are usually understanding, but we've only been doing this for a year.

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Christina Chan-Park, PhD, MaPA, MSIS (she/her)

STEM Librarian Coordinator and Research Librarian for Science and Data
Liaison to Aviation Science, Biology, Chemistry/Biochemistry, Environmental Science,
Geology, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology/Neuroscience, Statistical Science

Baylor University, One Bear Place #97146, Waco, TX 76798
254-710-4538, 254-710-3116 (fax), CY_Chan@baylor.edu
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6047-9805
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Original Message:
Sent: Oct 04, 2021 01:53 PM
From: Megan Kocher
Subject: Boundary setting (longish)

Hi Jane, 

We've begun using a tiered service model based on Cornell's to deal with capacity constraints and also because some people just want different levels of service. In the "Consultant" role, we limit our time commitment to a maximum of 4 hours -- that generally looks like one chunk of time to get them going and another chunk to review the search strategy. 

We've also had to ask people to wait a couple months if they want us to co-author. We have a 5-person team, so sometimes things can be handed off or spread around if one person is over capacity, but we always make sure the liaison is involved for subject-matter expertise. Or, if the person with the most expertise doesn't have capacity, they at least review the search strategy. 

I think this is a problem almost everyone comes up against -- it comes up frequently in workshop discussions. I'd be interested to hear how others handle it too. 

Megan