Another busy session with a range of people from across the sectors. I was keen to go along to this to see how things work outside of HE in terms of embedding a librarian. Hearing how things work in corporate law firms and management consultancy was defo an interesting one. I went away with some questions to consider and some ideas to take back to work and here they are:
1. Does a library service need a brand/identity or is it more important that our users identify with their librarian/link person?
I hadn’t thought about this before, yet it seems such an obvious thing! For me though when I am speaking to academics or students in my school, I am first and foremost representing the library and how we can support them, but also the department, Information Services, as a whole. I’ve blogged before about my concerns about our lack of a marketing strategy for the department and what message we’re trying to get across to our users. After all that, does it matter? Yes, I think it does matter, I do think we need a co-ordinated approach to marketing our services and a strong visual identity should go with that. However, after these discussions wonder if people in the school I look after think of me as the library. I’m going to ask them.
2. Should a subject/link librarian be based in the library or in the school/department/ that they work with/support/are responsible for?
Oooh an interesting one. From what I gathered from those working in corporate libraries – law, consultancy there’s a mix up of how the library/information service is incorporated into the practice. In a time when services are being cut across sectors, it’s more important than ever that we embed ourselves in our organisations, providing a good service and supporting the aims and objectives of the organisation.
So, as link librarian should I be based in the library or would it better if I was based in the school along with the lecturers? It’s something that I want to explore further as I think there are legs in this, not only for the students, but for the lecturers as well. I wonder if part of my time in the library and part of my time in the department could work. One to explore further. Are any other academic librarians doing this?
3. Do our job titles matter?
This came up briefly as Laura Woods @Woodsiegirl mentioned that the people she works with in the law firm have started calling her a business analyst. Does that matter? Does this mean that they don’t know what her role involves or is just how they interpret it?
I had a similar situation when I was doing a joint session with a lecturer the other day, it seemed like they didn’t really know what job title to give me. I think I was introduced to the students as their library person. That works, I am their library person, but I also consider myself to be their representative of the department Information Services.
For me that sort of sums things up about this session.
Final session looked at the Challenges face in HE at the moment facilitated by Liz Jolly @liz_jolly and is coming next…
Very interesting post, congrats. But there is something I’d like to know as someone who doesn’t work in libraries but does a fair bit of embedding with researchers. When you talk about embedding in the department you mean as having your own space outside the library? Richard Perkins commented that he works one day a week on a shared office so that people can drop in. Wouldn’t it be more interesting not leaving physically the library from time to time, but working with, for instance, small groups of users/teachers, always the same ones and attending their specific needs on a regular basis? This of course would mean having to visit them from time to time or needing your own space outside but I believe that if we think of embedding as working outside the physical space of the library we are getting all wrong.
As for identifying the link person as the library as a “whole” and not “just” the person, I’m not quite sure. I think this thing about library marketing does not have to be that extreme. I always go to the same cafe because I like the people who work there, I go to the same shops to by food for the same reason, its all about offering a personal service to the users, it doesn’t matter if they like me more than my partner, the main thing is that they are using the service and coming once and again. As soon as someone leaves another one will take it from where they left it, it’s just about creating the habit and fulfilling the users needs, who cares about names.
One other factor I forgot to mention is that the space I visit is at the furthest end of the campus, so I get to see people who are simply too busy to come to the Library. But of course you’re right; embedding is more than just being in a physical space.
Eeek. Got to go and close up so will reply to this proper another time!!
Great write up! I was really interested in that question about where link/subject type librarians were based as well – especially as it’s clearly worked really well for Laura in her firm. Even if they call her something different now!
Thank you
Sorry for taking ages to reply. I completely agree it is an interesting one and I’m keen to find out whether it’s something that I could do here. There are lots of ways that I think it would be beneficial to the students and staff but also for us as a department. I think I probably need to find some more examples of where this is working well not only in HE but in other sectors and go from there.
Any ideas, you let me know and I’ll be sure to share any progress I make with it here.
Emma
On point 2, yes, I’m doing this at Warwick. I spend one day a week in a shared office in one of my departments (my other main departments are in the same building). People can either drop in or make an appointment in advance. The staff & students now see me as being as much part of their department as a member of Library staff. Some approaches go straight to work questions, other may be social visits, but it’s amazing what you pick up about research interests, problems etc just from an innocuous starting point.
I wouldn’t want to be permanently based there, as part of my perceived value is that I know what’s going on in the Library and which levers need pulling to make things happen. No matter how many video clips we make, or web pages of information we provide, there’s still a huge market for the human (I hesitate to say) expert.
Hi Richard
Thanks very much for your comment, really interesting to hear how you do things at Warwick. I think this is a great way like you say not only to become more involved with staff and students in the department but also to pick up on what the priorities are, where there are issues etc. It may be that I can help with things but I don’t know that they are going on, do you know what I mean?
I agree about the human element being important as well as all the other stuff we provide in terms of online support with videos, webpages, learning objects, the VLE, all of those things should compliment each other and there’s a lot that come out of actual conversation with people.
I’d be interested to hear more about how you set about getting into the department at Warwick, so I may well be in touch directly.
Emma
I think this is an increadibly important topic, and agree with you on the need for a coordinated marketing strategy (strategy being the key word here, in the sense of a ‘master plan’ – which group(s) is the library serving, why, what value do they bring, what user problems are they solving, how are they seen / do they want to be seen, etc). Ad hoc promotional activities (tactical marketing), giving out different messages to different groups or at different times, without an overall, coodinated, plan could do more harm than good.
Job titles are important as a part of this overall plan – like it or hate it, labels are important – they form part of the perception of what the library is, what it is *for*; they are part of the ‘brand’. In a corporate library, where the perception might be ‘librarian = books, & at work I don’t need books’, and also where the more mundane library tasks might be being outsourced, it could be important that the brand perception is changed to one where ‘business analyst = person who gets me data, information & analysis of that information, all in a client-ready format, for me to take to my meeting’.
I think it’s important that users identify with the library as a whole service, not *just* with their link person – or what happens when that person moves onto another job?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and massive apologies it’s taken so long for me to respond! Anyway, on the first point about the marketing strategy business, I’m with you. I think one of the biggest challenges here is that we 6 libraries across the different university sites and trying to get a coordinated approach across one never mind 6 has it’s difficulties. Added to that is that libraries are part of the department Information Services so we have to consider what our message to our different user groups is as a library service but also as the wider department. At the moment a working group; the Customer Services Planning Group are developing a communications strategy and as I understand it marketing the department as a whole as well as the different aspects of the department, like libraries will come into that. That’s what I’m hoping anyway! I really think that requires someone being employed with that as their specific remit but that’s obviously not going to happen any time soon what with the budget chops and all, yet I think it’s such an important area.
Interesting thoughts on the job title discussion, we’re known as Information Advisers and Assistant Information Advisers and I’m sure there were discussions before I started in post about what our job titles actually mean and how people interpret them. In terms of how they fit into our brand and therefore message that we want to put out there I’m not sure as we don’t have a clear brand – yet!
To be honest I have no idea if our users identify with the library as a whole or not and I don’t know how we could measure that. I think as long as they know where they can get help with library stuff then that’s identifying enough
Lots to think about, as usual!
Librarian Emma