Presented at LILAC 2023.

1. Why don’t they like me?
The trials and tribulations of a newly
qualified Science librarian
Eva Garcia Grau (she/her), Information Consultant
Royal Holloway, University of London

2. A bit of personal background
Born in Barcelona
Librarian as second career
Started in public libraries
Moved to Royal Holloway in 2014

3. Royal Holloway in stats
6 Schools:
• Business and Management
• Engineering, Physical and Mathematical Sciences
• Humanities
• Law and Social Sciences
• Life Sciences and the Environment
• Performing and Digital Arts
11,732 students

5. Eureka!
Work problem
+
Dissertation
=
Useful guidance
+
Masters

6. DissertationTopic
Title:
•Tips for Science librarians: Engaging students and
academics with information literacy
Research questions:
•What are the barriers to embedding information
literacy into the curriculum?
•Are there advantages to aligning information
literacy with the discipline where it is taught?

7. Analysis by journal

8. Analysis by discipline
15
41
29
46
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Hard pure Soft pure Hard applied Soft applied
Classified according to Becher andTrowler (2001, p. 36)

9. Analysis by topic
15
23
40
38
35
35
33
41
75
74
84
91
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Collaboration with academics
Online vs. face-to-face
Embedded vs. standalone
Student engagement
Generic vs. subject-specific
Institutional support
Differences between disciplines
One-shot vs. point-of-need
Librarians as teachers
Assessed vs. optional
Collaboration with other departments
Gamification
0-10 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71-80 81-90 91-99

10. Barriers to integration
Academic reluctance
Lack of institutional support
Academic perceptions of
librarians and IL
Librarian’s level of
confidence
Lack of integration at the
point of need

11. To align or not to align…
Information literacy – generic vs. subject-specific
Differences between the disciplines

12. Alternative strategies
Academics as IL teachers
Standalone IL modules
Online materials
IL at the reference desk

13. Recommendations
Speak their language
Become familiar with your disciplines
Be brave
You don’t have to do it all
Librarians who teach are teachers
Create online resources
Don’t be discouraged

14. Application

15. What did I do?
Drip-drip approach
Get invited to committees
Attend College social events
Get to know academics as people
Develop a good relationship with School admin
Talk about IL without mentioning IL
Demonstrate my expertise
Focus on improving NSS scores

16. What worked
Demonstrating my knowledge
Demonstrating how I can save academics time
Adapting to the disciplines:
• Learning LaTeX
• Learning about Open Access
• Referencing in IEEE rather than Harvard
• Alternative referencing software
Word of mouth
Advocacy through students
School admins as allies

17. What didn’t work
One-to-one relationships
Maths
IL not always at point of need
Lack of institutional support

18. Results
Increase in teaching
Increase in student appointments
Inductions for all departments
Deeper relationships with academics
Deeper relationships with School admins
Being invited to events
Teaching being booked well in advance
IL at the point of need
More confidence in my abilities

19. Next steps
Continue the conversations
Continue learning
Academic survey
Networking with other
Science librarians

20. Questions?

21. Contact details
Email
Eva.GarciaGrau@rhul.ac.uk
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/
evagarciagrau/
Twitter
@EvaDannG
OR....
Come and visit!

22. Picture attributions
Slide 2 - Barcelona by Noah Dann Garcia
Slide 11 - Stella, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Slide 18 - Image by mohamed_hassan from Pixabay
Slide 20 - Image byArek Socha from Pixabay

23. References
Becher, T. and Trowler, P. (2001) Academic tribes and territories.
2nd edn. Philiadelphia: Open University Press.
Academic Liaison Team at Royal Holloway (2019) Information
Literacy Teaching Framework. Available at:
https://intranet.royalholloway.ac.uk/staff/assets/docs/pdf/library/
information-literacy-teaching-framework-final.pdf (Accessed: 13
April 2023)