The document summarizes interviews with library staff about their experiences with engagement roles at a university library. Some key themes that emerged include challenges with wider university engagement during times of change, the importance of building partnerships and credibility with academic stakeholders. Within the library department, themes discussed included staff's desire for more strategic information and influence, as well as tensions around centralized engagement roles. The staff discussed lessons learned around defining and carrying out their engagement responsibilities, managing expectations, and ensuring role clarity and fulfillment. Overall conclusions questioned how effective the engagement model was in practice and how the roles and approach could be improved in the future.

1. Engagement
roles in academic
libraries 2:
The best laid
plans…
Katie Fraser
Caroline Williams

2. The best laid plans ….
1. Context
2. Methods
3. Emerging themes
a. Wider University / Faculty
engagement
b. The Department
c. The team
d. Personal experiences
4. Early conclusions
5. Next step

3. Context
1st relationship management conference paper
University of Nottingham

4. Methods
Semi-structured interviews
prompting reflections on:
1. The engagement role in
comparison to previous roles
2. Critical incidents from working
with stakeholders
3. Experience of the Strategic
Engagement Cycle
4. Coming from inside vs. outside
the library and information world

5. Emerging themes
Wider
University
engagement
LRLR – the
Department
Team FSE
Personal

6. Wider
University

7. Engaging with change and a changing environment
“Whereas it really didn’t bother me, cause I’d done,
you know and I’d worked [in other organisations]
where change like, change in structure, change in roles
is just part of the furniture. So, really used to it, and so
a bit shocking but it was like such a big thing.”
“I was working with faculty and a lot of what was
happening in the faculty was quite negative. There was
restructures going on, [a senior academic stakeholder]
coming in making changes. … So, you’ll go to meet them
about one thing, and they wanted to talk about
something completely different. ”

8. Partnership and credibility
“…talking very broadly about their school’s priorities, the
strategic direction, what they felt about the way in which
the library service was supporting those strategic
priorities well, or possibly where there was room for
improvement. It felt as though that was working at the
strategic level and in a role of being a trusted partner.”
“I think that it’s very important …, it’s that word again
‘credibility’ with members of the academic community that
it’s important that you have some insight and some affinity
into the information environment that they swim in”

9. LRLR

10. Access to strategic information and influence
“I think one of the challenges was how information
flowed, and it was seen by the FSE team as very
important that they got information from FSE, from
SMT because they felt they were the ones at the ‘cliff
face’ almost. So, they were representing the department
and therefore, they wanted to feel they had a really good
understanding of what’s going on at SMT.”
“But you know, you could imagine if that had really taken off,
how different the whole department might be. … a lot of
what we do would be really joined up, and visible and have
concrete outcomes, and be measurable, all those sorts of
things. I think very ambitious as a small group with you
know, not necessarily the influence at an SMT level to
actually make the change happen.”

11. Understanding and engagement across LRLR
“there was a feeling on the part of some middle
managers in the department, that they wanted to be
in control of their own engagement processes, for
their own projects and service initiatives. And, that
having somebody from the outside, … being
responsible for that was uncomfortable. A sense of,
… them having to let go control.”
“And, we did even notice that within some parts of the
department, jobs were created which had the word
‘engagement’ in the title. … And, we all wondered well, aren’t
we meant to be the engagement people?”

12. Team

13. 13
Strategic
Engagement
Cycle

14. Between LRLR and the Faculties
“one thing that we had to make clear… We could
propose what might happen, as a result of that
listening to other parts of LRLR, but we couldn’t
dispose. In other words, we couldn’t bring about
change, we were not in a management role which
had resource that would enable us to bring about
the change.”
“I think the… Faculty and School Engagement Team had
bought into the idea that we would come back. We wouldn’t
provide solutions, we’d come back to our department and
discuss the challenges and come up with solutions together.”

15. Spoilt by choice
“Well maybe what we didn’t do was as a group is ….
match them up against each other and say, “okay if
we’ve only got a limited resource, which of those
many, many things that we’re trying do would we
want to progress?”
“To the extent that I was able to get around people [it]
seemed to me to be fruitful but, always endlessly conscious of
huge numbers of people that I wasn’t touching, that I wasn’t
talking to. And, you know what do we do about them?”

16. Personal

17. Satisfaction and motivation
“It was extremely gratifying to go along to those
meetings and to spend quite a long time with each
of those [senior academic stakeholders], talking
very broadly about their priorities, the strategic
direction, what they felt about the way in which the
library service was supporting those strategic
priorities well, or possibly where there was room for
improvement.”
“I think we would have, potentially I think one or two staff we
would have lost because they didn’t feel fulfilled in the role.
They didn’t feel they were using their expertise.”

18. New vs. established
“So, certainly for the first few months, that was my
sort of, wide eyed… innocent sort of, ‘ooh I’m really
new to all of this, please you know tell me what’s,
what you need because I don’t have any
preconceptions.”
“Well, gaining entry wasn’t as difficult for me, as it might
have been for colleagues who were joining both the team and
the University, at the same time because some of the faces
that I needed to have a relationship with, I already knew.”

19. Uncertainty around role
“Then there was just not even being clear in my own
mind when I talked to them about teaching or I’d
refer back to somebody else… and there’s just this
general feeling of uncertainty, at best.”
“I think the… ‘light bulb moment’ for me was when I asked
myself the question, so, if an academic stopped me in the
corridor, and asked me, “who do I talk to about open access?”
I didn’t know the answer. And, at that moment I was like,
this can’t be right then, because if I don’t know the answer to
that then how are we expecting anyone else to.”

20. Early
conclusions

21. Early conclusions
1. Did the Strategic
Engagement Cycle model
work in practice?
2. How do staff feel now?
3. What have we lost as a
Department?
4. Would we do it again, and if
so what would it look like?

22. Thank you.