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Faculty outreach: Strategies, Challenges, Tools and Tips

by Bonnie Swoger on Jun 17, 2010

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The rapid pace of technological change can leave faculty struggling to understand the role of the library in a digital environment. Librarians can easily loose touch with the ways that faculty are crea...

The rapid pace of technological change can leave faculty struggling to understand the role of the library in a digital environment. Librarians can easily loose touch with the ways that faculty are creating and accessing scholarship. This session will be useful for librarians who are new to faculty outreach as well as experienced librarians looking for new tools and strategies to help them communicate with faculty. Join us for a discussion of effective strategies to reach out to and communicate with faculty on campus. We will explore questions like: How can new technological tools assist librarians in sharing information with faculty? How can we use technology to encourage faculty to share information with us? And: How to invite yourself to a department meeting?

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Very brief introduction by Bonnie
Although I've been at Geneseo since 2005, I just moved into a position involving any kind of faculty outreach in 2007. Here are some things that I've done to help me start building relationships with faculty.
When I first started in my new position at Geneseo, one of my greatest worries about faculty outreach was that I didn't want to bother the faculty. I didn't want them to find me annoying, or tell me to go away. I needed to be just a little bit brave in order to reach out to faculty - they weren't going to come to me. I may occasionally have to be a bit uncomfortable. Fake it 'till you make it.
I started by sending occasional emails to the faculty I work with. The emails were very focused (a database outage of interest to their department, a new resource). If I forwarded an email, I always provided context or commentary. Examples: Scopus database outage. I always converted the listed GMT time to EST. Announcement of a new free resource in a discipline. I would ask: Is this something that you or your students would use? I got a few responses saying, "thanks but this won't be useful to us," but no one told me to stop sending them stuff. So I got a little braver.
I realized that email was about as technologically savvy as most of my faculty got. My dreams of using twitter to reach out to faculty went out the window. I had to go back to basics. I found that when I had a quick question for a faculty member, a quick phone call was more likely to elicit a response. Examples: Quick reminders that it was time to submit their last book purchase requests. Requests for a meeting. Follow up phone calls related to email invitations or requests. Unfortunately, faculty are often out of their office in class or meetings, and since emails often go unanswered. I realized that the most important tool in my aresenal was basic face to face communication, so I started...
Using my feet. I started holding all of my meetings with faculty members in their offices. If I was doing a library instruction session for their class, we talked about it in their office for 30 minutes. A meeting with department library reps to talk about several recent changes Special projects I ran into folks in hallways, we made small talk. Faculty could ask little questions. How do I set it up access to a journal at home? (book mark the link with the proxy URL) Do we have access to this journal? (No, but I'll put it on the list in case we have any money.) I ordered a book but I haven't heard anything. (I'll follow up on that for you.) Perhaps my most effective use of this technique is in following up to invitations to a faculty luncheon we held that Kate is going to tell you more about. When I stopped in to faculty offices to say "Hey, did you get our invitation, will you be coming to our luncheon?" The most common response was "What invitation?" Once I explained things, I almost always got a "Yes."
What I learned was that although I use lots of different ways to communicate with friends and colleagues in the library world, the faculty I was working with weren't using twitter or LinkedIn, so they wouldn't be good tools for reaching out to them. I had to meet them where they are (virtually and in real life). So, I found myself going back to basics - walking and talking (the skills my daughter is currently working to master).
PLEASE NOTE: ALL IMAGES are COPYRIGHT, DO NOT USE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM Morgan Gwenwald I’m Morgan Gwenwald, and I’m going to talk briefly about my experiences as the Outreach Librarian at Sojourner Truth Library at New Paltz. [CLICK] I’ve served in this position for about four years, so I’ve had an opportunity to shape a program that I inherited…. And I’d like to share some of my experiences with you this morning….
First I’d like to echo Bonnie’s observation that it is vitally important to Get out of the Library. I recommend using all opportunities available to you to interact with faculty. Serve as a liaison librarian in areas where you have a special expertise or passion. Put yourself in new situations… attend lectures, conferences, performances… [CLICK] This approach certainly increases my understanding of what’s happening in the classrooms, studios and labs at New Paltz, and in turn, helps me develop projects that will have value to faculty and students. [CLICK] And don’t neglect social events. Because the core of outreach is talking to people, I have endless conversations about what faculty are doing, their classes, their research, their travels, their families.
IN addition to becoming a social butterfly… strive to think outside the box. As academic librarians we provide very solid services and resources to the campus community. And that is what is expected of us. [CLICK] But anyone working with outreach is in a unique position, We can approach our patrons with a slightly different agenda. We need to capture their attention and enlist their participation in the library in public ways. We need to create partnerships with them.
Traditional outreach activities are a large part of my job. I do the usual array of things, including: [CLICK] READ poster campaign, though with a strong focus on academics and the collaborative work done by faculty and students. [CLICK] And there’s a Used book sale, which provides a modest income, but more importantly is something the students and faculty look forward to each year. I also promote it as green activity as well. [CLICK] I inherited a Library Week event, which I have gradually pared down to a minimal set of activities, so I have more time to focus on other academic/content based activities…
And as I develop these relationship with faculty I encourage them to contact me with any problems or questions they have regarding the library. Most of the time, I refer them to another librarian.. But sometimes there are issues that fall through the cracks. I try to be a problem solver , and let faculty know I am always happy to hear from them. [CLICK] Here’s an example… I was having lunch with a professor and mentioned a certain book that had come in that I thought she’d find interesting, and she confessed that she wasn’t allowed to check out books. Dumbfounded I asked why, and it seems she had a lot of overdue books. I said that was not acceptable, as a member of the faculty, she MUST be able to check out books. [CLICK] Later, armed with a list of the missing books I went to her office and helped her unearth some… then we went to her home where we found all but one. Then, working with the circulation librarian we got her account cleared up and she is now a very happy, very compliant user.
Early on, I started creating exhibits with some of the faculty I had met… I am blessed with a library that has an extensive gallery space in the entryway, 14 wall cases, and 8 floor cases… a feature I am fighting to keep alive as we go through a major library renovation. [CLICK] The exhibits are sometimes around a class: Like a display of the artifacts gathered by the Archeology class in nearby Historic Huguenot Street. Or working with the English class studying the Graphic Novel. [CLICK] This is where there are real opportunities to connect with faculty… promotion of their work and scholarship .. Whether it is about a class, or a research project. Our faculty is incredibly talented and hardworking… but many of them are either too busy or too shy, or just plain clueless about self-promotion. I serve in a way, as a PR person for them, finding ways to publicize their work, and share it with the community. This is not traditional library work, but it brings important energy and support to the library in return.
Sometimes I work with a whole department, for example: As the liasion to the Women’s Studies Program I have lectured to classes, taught a course and also serve on their steering committee, and curriculum development committee. [CLICK] Through the lectures and Bibliographic instruction for women’s studies courses, students have come to know me as someone they can approach for help in their women’s studies classes, and projects. [CLICK] This year, when they were unable to put on their usual conference, I suggested a display in the library. I helped them put together a wide ranging exhibit on the topic of Women and Social Movements, partnering with Secondary Education, Latin American Studies and the Dorsky Museum.
I have found that after time, this kind of outreach effort tends to build on itself. Through my work on the Writing Board I became friends with the professor who is in charge of undergraduate research. [CLICK] Last year she approached me to see if there was a way to use the library as a staging area for their annual Student Research Symposium poster sessions. This was an incredible opportunity to bring students and faculty into the library in a very visible way. I convinced the Dean of the Library that we should close down the main reading room for a few hours on a Friday near the end of Spring semester. I helped organize the set-up and break-down of the event, working with students and staff. It takes an intense effort but is well worth it. [CLICK] We have done this for two years now, bringing in almost 60 poster sessions each year. And what better place than the library, to highlight this exciting work… [CLICK] and host students, faculty, the Provost and the President of the campus. I do believe, as probably most of us here do, that the library IS the heart of the campus, and this kind of event makes that concept real. It’s a win-win situation: celebrating student work, showcasing faculty mentors, and the library as the home to it all…
where students start their research and share it’s outcome, Completing the circle.
I would like to expand upon Morgan's idea of the library as the heart of a college campus.. At Geneseo's Milne Library, the concept of library as place isn't new, but outreach to faculty is. Connecting with faculty is one of our biggest challenges in our library, even as we strive to build upon this foundation of the library as the heart of all intellectual endeavors. So, I'm going to share the challenges we face in planning for faculty outreach and what strategies have worked in one particular case.
Faculty outreach has been a struggle at Geneseo. Earlier, Bonnie talked about challenges and strategies she faces as a new liaison librarian. My perspective comes from my relatively new position as coordinator of collection development (I started this new role in August 2008) and so tends to be more programmatic in scope than one-to-one contact. After my frustrating first year working with faculty, I realized something had to change. So the challenges: -Getting faculty to participate and connect with librarians in the library when most of our interactions are with students -Communication is an enormous challenge, especially with 23 academic departments and a department representative for each one, and outreach is not officially part of any librarian's responsibilities -No historical model at our institution; before I began my new role, there had been some half-hearted attempts at creating a liaison program, but it never got off the ground and I realized a culture change was necessary for both librarians and faculty -How do we communicate difficult topics -- this is what Bonnie alluded to earlier; no formal methods in place to communicate this to faculty So... how to fix it??
After this first year, I realized that this was how I felt like...trying to herd a bunch of kittens! I'm not saying my colleagues are all warm and fuzzy like kittens, just that much like kittens, coordinating lots of different people with different goals and plans was chaotic and dangerous at times. Milne has ten librarians who are liaisons to departments and all treat their outreach role differently.
I was frustrated and felt all the librarians needed to strategize for a realistic outreach plan. A retreat for the librarians was organized in August of 2009, held off-campus. It started out as a collection development retreat, but turned into a broader plan of action for outreach initiatives. Lots of great ideas came out of this retreat, including a scholarly communications initiative and a library effort for more strategic marketing and communication plans. The one strategy that we came up for faculty outreach and could implement relatively quickly was an idea I originally heard from Jenica Rogers at Potsdam; the idea of a library-sponsored faculty luncheon, held annually or once a semester. What for me seemed like a novel approach for getting the faculty to participate and connect may not seem so new to many of you. But it worked!
What we did: -Created a small committee of librarians who were interested in planning a faculty luncheon -Created a survey to send to our department reps and department chairs What worked: --Surveying our faculty reps ahead of time gave them input into what would work for them, not when we "assumed" they would come --Asked questions about day of week, time of day, time of semester
We also asked them about topics ahead of time, instead of assuming what they might want to hear -again, in this case, they DID want to hear about the budget and collections, but they also are concerned with IDS and library instruction Surveying gave us feedback and helped us strategically plan for the event Decided: -informal lunch, no flash -topics -who to invite (reps, chair, any new faculty) -made sure our library administration was there as well as liaison librarians and all other interested staff
so, what worked? Food is a huge draw for any event of course, and this made it a huge success! Having a lunch was a great idea; faculty liked being able to come in, have some food and then were willing to talk and listen to us in a more casual and informal environment than when we might normally encounter faculty in campus-sponsored gatherings
Having your campus administration is key; our Provost attended which was very important -Shows administration's support for the library and the outreach -Gives you an opportunity to showcase or talk about those new programs or issues with the Provost in attendance
Mingling is important!! We decided on a low-key, sit where you want, which does have drawbacks, but we did encourage all librarians to attend, not just liaisons. We encouraged mingling and librarian and faculty interaction. We had a total of 18 faculty present from 14 different departments. Departments Represented: School of Education Biology Chemistry Computer Science Mathematics Physics Communication Foreign Languages Sociology English History Communicative Disorders & Sciences SOTA/Art SOTA/Theatre
Content is key... What you talk about is important, since its how you are going to keep them there once they are in the door! Our topics were sent out in advance: --library materials budget --new allocation formula --digital scholarship and our anticipated scholarly communication program So how did we measure success? Feedback has been extremely positive; several new librarian-faculty collaborations are occuring, two in the classroom and several interested faculty are exploring other ways the library can help in their scholarship and teaching, which is exactly what we are trying to do! One strategy, but only one among many. Now, we would like to open up the floor to ask the audience to share with us some effective strategies you might have for planning or doing faculty outreach...anyone?

Faculty outreach: Strategies, Challenges, Tools and Tips — Presentation Transcript

Faculty Outreach: Strategies, Challenges, Tools and Tips Bonnie Swoger 1 , Morgan Gwenwald 2 and Kate Pitcher 1 SUNYLA Annual Conference, June 17, 2010 Affiliations: 1. SUNY Geneseo 2. SUNY New Paltz
Getting Started
Be brave (just a little)
Use email (just a bit)
Use the phone (when you can)
Use your feet (a lot)
Walking and talking (back to basics)
Outreach Providing Value -- Outside the Box Morgan Gwenwald Sojourner Truth Library SUNY New Paltz
Planning for Faculty Outreach
Outreach @Milne Library
Coordinating is a little bit like...
Feed 'em
Invite the big-wigs
Mingle
Content is key
Slides and Notes