Examining our relationship with departments, as we changed from a subject to a functional model of librarianship.

1. "TURN AND
FACE THE
STRANGE"
EXAMINING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH
DEPARTMENTS, AS WE CHANGED FROM
A SUBJECT TO A FUNCTIONAL MODEL OF
LIBRARIANSHIP
HELEN FARRELL, ACADEMIC ENGAGEMENT LIBRARIAN,
MAYNOOTH UNI, KILDARE, IRELAND.
HELEN.FARRELL@MU.IE
By FerniiMM (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

2. "FACING THE STRANGE" MEANS LOOKING AT:
• Context and reasons for change
• Plans for change
• Challenges and opportunities
• Results of survey
• Plans for the future

3. Source: Kelisi at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)
or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

4. Source: By Finaghy (at en-wp); postprocessing by AFBorchert [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMaynooth_St._Patrick's_College_2009_05_03.jpg

5. Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/Maynooth_University_Library_2.jpg

6. Source: Davechip: CC BY-SA 3.0 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d2/Iontas_John_Hume.jpg

7. STARTING WITH MAYNOOTH UNIVERSITY
#49 in Times Higher Education (THE)
Young University Rankings globally.
MU is 20 years old.
• Highest % of adult learners in Irish
university
• Highest % of access students
(disability)
• Highest % of disadvantaged students
• Fastest growing Irish university
• Smallest Irish university
Aiming to have 17,000 students by
2020.
Growing pains as numbers increase–
this year up 3,000, with plans to keep
expanding.

8. CHANGES IN MAYNOOTH UNIVERSITY
Growth is causing opportunities, problems
and change.
• Physical impact
• Cultural impact
• Infrastructural impact

9. CHANGES TO THE CURRICULUM
• Employers voiced a need for a more
rounded education, to include critical
skills.
• President is leading Higher Education
Authority taskforce on successfully
getting students from 2nd to 3rd level.
• Critical skills modules embedded in
curriculum
• Professional development and
employability module available to
second years
• SPUR programme with Library
involvement.
• New subject combinations allowed with
new cross-disciplinary choices.

10. CHANGES IN LIBRARIANSHIP
• Subject to functional change
• Conference in MU in 2017
• Changes in other Irish universities
• Evolving roles with more
engagement
• Embedding classes
• Greater focus on information literacy
and critical skills.
• "loss of close relationships with
academic departments […]"
(Hoodless & Pinfield, 2016)
• "Academic librarians must readily
accept, be responsive to, and
anticipate change to maintain and
justify their relevance to
stakeholders". (Knight, 2017)

11. SUBJECT VS.
FUNCTIONAL
Librarians need to actively:
• Promote library services
• Demonstrate value to faculty
The functional model allows greater flexibility
in our approach to our work.
Not all the drivers identified by Hoodless and
Pinfield (2016) are the same in MU, but many
in common;
• consistency of services across depts,
• new institutional foci,
• greater alignment with university strategic
plans,
• staff retirements.

12. CHANGES IN THE LIBRARY
INTERNAL FACTORS
• Ageing team, with 2 retirements coming up.
• Specialisation of the subject librarians had left many
departments with little engagement or support.
• Not clear if departments didn't need support from us,
or if they just hadn‘t connected with us in the past?
• Subject librarian team spread too thinly.
• Information literacy (MU Library Information Literacy
strategy)
EXTERNAL FACTORS
• Criticism of the collection in 2 Libqual surveys.
• Embedding classes allows for a greater positive
impact on students’ learning.
• Perception by faculty that a subject librarian is a
content expert, yet a good librarian has a very
adaptable skillset.
• Information Literacy Framework in MU Library,
developed in 2016, with 5 competencies identified for
students.

13. FRAMEWORK IDENTIFIES 5 COMPETENCIES
Dodd, L. (2017) 'Embedding information literacy through critical skills, collaboration and a new
curriculum'.
The framework is not linear, but allows for these
competencies to be identified and developed for
students to encourage an information-literate student.
Framework integrated with central elements of ‘A
Maynooth Education’
• Deep knowledge and critical intellectual skills
• Autonomous and responsible learners
• Skills for life and work
• Breadth of perspective
Based on elements from ‘A new curriculum for information literacy’
(ANCIL) and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL)
new Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education (Secker &
Coonan, 2011; Association of College and Research Libraries, 2014).

14. CHANGES IN THE TEACHING & LEARNING TEAM
"ALL CHANGED, CHANGED
UTTERLY"
• New roles for everyone apart from the Research
Support Librarian.
• Teaching and Learning: 2 dedicated librarians.
• Dedicated librarian for St. Patricks, Adult Ed and
working with Access Office.
• 2 Library Assistants to support the work of the team.
• Engagement and Information Services team work
with students and library users, front of house.
MY ROLE - ACADEMIC
ENGAGEMENT LIBRARIAN
• Responsibility for academics
• Identify strategic work areas in agreement with academics.
• Communication
• Library Reps.
• Collection development role.
• General collections and finance. E-Resources. Renewals.
• Feed ideas, actions and responses to all teams across Library.
• Positively change how the Library is viewed, by departments we have failed
to engage with.
• Create linkages between the goals of departments and the work of the
Library.

15. PLANS FOR THE TEAM
IMMEDIATE FUTURE
• Our head will re-run facilitated session with
team at 6-monthly point to assess the
impact of change.
• Survey will be re-run in June 2018 to assess
impact of the change.
• Other teams will be assessed too (method
tbc) to see if there’s an impact spreading
across Library staff.
LONG TERM
At an operational level it is an evolving
process as the team is in transition. The goal
is to move us from working in silos to
developing collaborative connections.
Organic development but closely linked in
at all times with the strategic plan for the
Library and the University.

16. MY OWN PLANS FOR MY ROLE
• Initially it involved a lot of reading and planning.
• Run survey to gauge a sense of what was needed and to also promote our potential.
• Meet every departmental head by Christmas 2017!
• Feed all potential leads to teams across library, follow up on same and review in 2018.
• Arrange 2-3 semi-informal meetups for Library Reps to identify work areas, promotion.
• Identify gaps in the collection, gaps in support, departments that have blockages to mutual progress
and prioritise all of these in 2018.
• Map the evolution of the role.
• Revisit survey a year in as part of the evaluation of the pilot phase. Map the needs from the survey to
departments and faculties. Use this to prioritise tasks.

17. STAFF SURVEY
WHY?
• Gauge their level of engagement and
awareness of the team
• Promote our services, skills and potential
• Identify areas for development and focus
• SWOT analysis of our work
• A benchmark before the changes fully rolled
out means we can reassess in the future to see
if measurable change has happened
WHAT?
• Used a mixture of questions to ask them about
efficacy, quality and frequency of communication,
information and services, inspired by similar survey in
DCU (Hyland & Callaghan, 2017)
• Broke down the services and work areas by 3
functional areas of the team, and based the core of
the survey on these areas:
 engagement/subject support
 teaching and learning
 research support

18. RESPONSES CAME FROM

19. TRENDS
• Sent to all subscribed to faculty email group in MU.
• 44 responses.
• Good spread of responses across the 3 faculties
and 47 departments and institutes; 20 did not
respond but they tended to be centres or small
departments.
• Contact with us was mostly "occasional" with email
being a clear winner at 77%, but in-person contact
was surprisingly high at 20%.
• The quality of information received from us was rated
as "good" or "excellent" by 30% and 47.5%
respectively; just 1 response was "very poor".

20. SOME OF THE FEEDBACK
Used the traffic-light system to gather open-
ended feedback.
• What should we stop doing?
• What should we keep on?
• What should we start doing?
Fascinating results and some validation for our
vision for the work of the team.
Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/light-road-red-yellow-46287/

21. WE SHOULD STOP DOING?
• Bureaucracy and rules around purchasing – e-
Books vs. Print, multi-copy limit.
• Dysfunctional website – we often agree.
• Searching – changes in the interface?
• A lot said "nothing"; keep on keeping on.
"Thinking that staff and students are aware of
everything the Library has to offer. "
/
Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/red-stop-sign-39080

22. WE SHOULD START DOING:
Less than half replied, but the 19 who did gave suggestions:
• Involve us: induction for staff, training for staff, encourage staff
to participate in training in Library.
• "Visit us": staff engagement, increased visibility on campus,
regular contact, come to the departments to give tailored
sessions on alerts and searching to faculty. "A programme of
visits to departmental staff meetings over a 2/3 year period".
• Improve IT and/or CMS: easier eBook downloads, slow
connections, perceived lack of integration of databases within
CMS, Kindle borrowing, quicker & easier downloads for
researchers.
"Consideration should be given to developing competencies
(digital, critical, information literacies) beyond the student's first
year in University. There is a need to also consider how this might
be done with outreach students."
https://www.pexels.com/photo/athletes-running-on-track-and-field-oval-in-grayscale-photography-
34514/

23. WE SHOULD KEEP ON:
• Connecting, communicating, innovating in an
approachable and helpful way.
• Providing access to print and E-Resources and
keeping faculty up to date on these.
• Buying books
• Providing classes to students: "come into classrooms"
and "LIST programme is excellent".
Keep on:
"Subject Librarians" and "FSA"
https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-doing-thumbs-up-193821/

24. ANY MISSED OPPORTUNITIES?
• "More could potentially be done with the large foyer area/24 hour study during
exam periods“.?
• "Publicise more to students - one-to-one sessions if they are struggling - more
group sessions - maybe tell staff so we can advertise during lectures?"
• "More integrated into programmes for training and education. There is a lot of
knowledge in the library which seems to be seen as separate from the university."
• "Research jointly with academics."

25. WE ASKED THEM ABOUT SOME ENGAGEMENT AND
SUPPORT SERVICES:
1. Recommending, suggesting & facilitating access to relevant library resources (books, eBooks, journals, databases.)
2. Advice & support with ordering library resources (books, eBooks, journals etc.) and ensuring reading-list material
is available for your students.
3. Knowing who to contact in the Library when you need assistance.
• Collaboration with you and/or your Department on shared projects.
• Communicating with you about library services, resources and future plans.
• Library representation at Faculty, Departmental and other suitable meetings.
• Advice & support on Copyright, Licensing issues and use of material in Moodle/other media.
• 1-to-1, or small group information skills consultations with students.
• 1-to-1, or small group information skills consultations with faculty.

26. ENGAGEMENT & SUPPORT SERVICES IN MU
LIBRARY:
• ‘Collaboration on shared projects’ was judged to be the most unimportant, and
was also the least well-known service.
• Also less well-known were ‘Copyright support, licensing and use of material in
VLE‘’s, but there's an interest there across the spectrum respondents.
• The areas judged to have lesser importance still had a solid level of interest.

27. WE ASKED THEM ABOUT SOME TEACHING &
LEARNING SERVICES:
1. Providing classes for your students on information skills and library resources.
2. Providing tailored online information for your students on information skills and
library resources.
3. Identifying areas with you where we can support your student's learning and skills,
delivering classes and developing supports to address this.
• Communication between us (MU Library and you) on embedding information literacy and
critical skills into the curriculum.
• Advice & support in using library online resources or materials in Moodle or the classroom.

28. TEACHING & LEARNING IN MU LIBRARY
• "Communication between us (MU Library and you) on embedding information
literacy and critical skills into the curriculum" was judged to be the least
important service, and also the least known about.

29. WE ASKED THEM ABOUT SOME RESEARCH
SUPPORTS:
1. Recommending, facilitating access to and help using research resources.
2. Information and support with scholarly communication and publication.
3. Library workshops for faculty & research students on bibliometrics, social media,
altmetrics, databases etc.
• Advice and/or partnership on systematic reviews.
• Open Access publishing expert knowledge and promotion.
• Identify and work on collaborations with faculty, departments and groups to develop
connections between research & teaching.

30. RESEARCH SUPPORTS IN MU LIBRARY
• "Library workshops for faculty & research students on bibliometrics, social media, altmetrics,
databases etc." was considered to be the least important (yet was voted #3) by some
respondents.
• "Information and support with scholarly communication and publication." Was considered to be
the second-least important (yet voted #2 in importance!) by some respondent.
• High degree of polarisation in the responses between most and least important which suggests
the diverse level of support needs of departments. Some need lots, some need none. Lots in the
middle.
• In the middle, interest in partnering on systematic reviews and OA.
• Partnering on systematic reviews, and OA, were also the services least known about.

31. WHAT WE CAN TAKE FROM THE SURVEY
NEED TO PROMOTE
• “Connectedness' and 'dialogue' are
the two major weaknesses in higher
education. I think the library can play
a pivotal role in addressing these
weaknesses. However, this will need
serious engagement from faculty
also".
NEED TO CONNECT
• "Librarians should publish with
academics if they don't already do
so."
• "More communication between MU
Library and Depts on embedding
information literacy and critical skills
into the curriculum would be useful"

32. WHAT WE CAN TAKE FROM THE SURVEY: 2
NEED TO PROVIDE
• "I think the ideal should be that
librarians should be able to work with
the students directly and on a one-
to-one basis when they have
questions about information skills or
research materials."

33. RUNNING THE SURVEY AGAIN
• Plans to re-run it in May/June 2018 to assess the change, 1 year on.
• Will check questions to make sure they cover all our work areas.
• Send it out before staff leave for summer in 2018.
• Analyse changes, impact, distribution of engagement, expansion of T&L and research contacts?
• Analyse needs by faculty and by department, if a wider response is received in 2018.
• Take out my leading question "how effective" and change it to a neutral question on our communication with faculty.
• Remove the option for no follow up of email; limitation of distribution method.
• Include a follow-up email to identify respondent if they allow; would allow people to choose "would like to know more" if they
wanted, or contact those who'd made useful suggestions that were already in place.
• Would like to incentivise responses in some way.
• Analysis of 2017 and 2018 surveys will form the basis of a possible article.

34. PRESSURE POINTS IN THE FUTURE
STAFFING
• Are there enough staff for the
successful implementation of the
model?
• Are there enough Library staff to
support the expanding MU?
• Can we meet the needs of students and
staff successfully without Subject
Librarians?
EXPECTATIONS
• Has the functional model the potential to
generate more work than staffing can cope
with?
• Could new ways of working raise
expectations for collaboration that we won't
be able to meet?
• What level of satisfaction will there be with
our department, after one year?
Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/industry-vintage-old-fabric-1919/

35. SUMMING UP
• Change is disruptive but brings lots of opportunity, outreach
and new projects.
• Need to plan for change, build evaluation into the process,
and keep communications open.
• Be open to criticism, don’t take it personally, continue to
engage, and build it into your plans as much as you can
without getting diverted.
THANK YOU. 
Helen.farrell@mu.ie
Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-and-white-black-and-white-camera-hands-594379/

36. REFERENCES:
Dodd, L. (2017) 'Embedding information literacy through critical skills, collaboration and a new curriculum'.
Education, T. H. (2017) Maynooth University [online], Times Higher Education World University Rankings, available: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/maynooth-university
[accessed 04/11/2017].
Hoodless, C. and Pinfield, S. (2016) 'Subject vs. functional: Should subject librarians be replaced by functional specialists in academic libraries?', Journal of Librarianship and Information Science.
Hyland, J. and Callaghan, L. (2017) 'Ask the Audience: Identifying what library services are important to the research community at DCU', CONUL conference [podcast], available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szQxodRIMFE [accessed 13/11/2017].
Knight, J. A. (2017) 'Academic librarians as change champions: a framework for managing change', Library Management, 38(6/7), 294-301.
Kouker, A. (2016) 'Changing roles in changing times: the academic liaison librarian in flux.', Libfocus [online], 13/11/2017, available: http://www.libfocus.com/2016/12/changing-roles-in-changing-
times.html [accessed.
Lewis, D. W. (2017) 'Measures of change in academic library behavior.', Library Leadership & Managment, 32(1), 1-8.
Pasek, J. E. (2015) 'Organizing the liaison role', College & Research Libraries News, 76(4), 202.
Shlak, T. (2017) 'Academic Libraries and Engagement: A Critical Contextualization of the Library Discourse on Engagement', The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Available online 22 September 2017.
Trott, B. and Silver, I. D. (2014) 'Outreach Activities for Librarian Liaisons', Reference & User Services Quarterly, 54(2), 8-14.