A PR Librarian survey for those interested in participating

This survey information just came to my inbox for those who are interested in participating:
Good morning,

*apologies for cross-postings*

We are conducting a voluntary questionnaire to examine the role of the PR/Marketing/Communications Librarian (or Professional) in Canadian and U.S. Academic Libraries. The questionnaire will take about 5 minutes to complete and includes questions about the development of your position.

All data collected is anonymous. You may withdraw from participating in this questionnaire at any time. There will be no method to link the data from the questionnaire to your identity, your job position in the organization, your place of employment.

The questionnaire URL is below:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=YF7WLWw9TB_2fCFwuf4xpVFQ_3d_3d

IP addresses will not be collected (they will be masked). Questionnaire data will not be linked to the computer workstation where you completed the questionnaire.

By agreeing to participate in the questionnaire you are giving consent to participate in the study.

All data will be used for research for publication in a peer reviewed journal.

If you have any questions regarding your rights as research subjects, please contact Ms. Angela Cartmell at cartmell@mail.csi.cuny.edu or
718-982-3867.

Thank you for completing the questionnaire,

Mark Aaron Polger, Reference and Instruction Librarian
College of Staten Island, City University of New York
polger@mail.csi.cuny.edu

Karen Okamoto, Reference and Instruction Librarian
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York
kokamoto@jjay.cuny.edu

Fall Open House Events

What is being done to bring faculty and students (new and returning) into the library at the start of the school year? I know several schools hold open houses. What has worked? What are your plans for this year? Do you offer a series of events for one or several weeks or focus on one open house event on one particular day?

How many hats can a librarian wear? :)

I hear a lot of you mentioning that you are officially the outreach librarian but that you are also a subject specialist or another role in the library. Several of you mentioned that you are education librarians, do you also run your school’s Curriculum Materials Center or are you more strickly subject specialists? And, how many “hats” are too many? Do you feel like you can still do your other tasks justice while providing good outreach for the library or does one job start to lose your attention because of  the other(s)?

I think that we are going to continue to see multiple jobs continue in libraries with the current economy, and I’m sure many of your libraries have several positions that have more than one “title” (like we do here at Kutztown). I’m just wondering -  how many hats we can wear before our work  starts to suffer? After all, there really are only so many hours in any given day, week, month, etc. Thoughts??

Defining the Role of the Outreach Librarian

In August, 2009 I accepted the position of Outreach Librarian at St. John’s University, Queens, New York. This is a newly created, faculty-level position which aims to address the changing nature of library services in an ever-increasing digital environment — a world in which the structure and services of “the library” can no longer be limited to a particular space in a building with stacks of books. The role of the outreach librarian, therefore, is not limited to traditional reference/user services — it’s more than just a new name for a traditional job.

So what exactly is an “outreach librarian?”

One of the challenges of being an academic outreach librarian is to find ways to assess needs and deliver services (i.e. “outreach”) to the campus community — including faculty & students — to develop innovative ways to meet our users’ needs in both traditional and non-traditional ways. This requires a give-and-take relationship — one in which all parties participate in the “conversation.” With a reliance on newly-emerging information technologies and the establishment of collaborative partnerships throughout the community of the college/university, the outreach librarian can become an key player in determining the future of the academy. Part of the reason for the establishment of designated “outreach librarian” is to re-define the role of the librarian — one that is more active in approach, more universal in scope, and more flexible in character.

As the world changes, so must we. What are your thoughts?

RSS Feed

I have added an RSS link on the right of this page for those wishing to add this blog content to a reader. I hope it helps.

Job Descriptions to Share

Would any of you like to submit your job descriptions for outreach librarian to be posted here? I could add a new tab for them, and post them in PDF. Maybe this would help libraries and librarians across the country. Send them to me at kwanamak@kutztown.edu with the subject: Outreach Librarian Job Description (or something to that effect so that I can fish them out of my spam box as needed).

The Argument for an Outreach Librarian

As I spend more and more of my time as Education Librarian doing library PR work, I dream that our library will some day get an actual outreach librarian position. What arguments have other schools used to obtain this position, and has it been an additional position (another actual librarian) or a change in job decriptions for a librarian position already at the library?

SSHELCO Panel Discusses PR

Six librarians from Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education libraries joined together on Friday morning (April 3, 2009) at a library conference in Grantville, PA to share information about library outreach at each of their campuses.  Questions for the panelists came from a survey conducted in the weeks prior to the conference and were attributed to people both inside and outside of the State System as well as library and non-library professionals.

More details from the panel to follow.

Academic Libraries Reach Out

Welcome Everyone!
Please use this blog to share information and ideas about academic library outreach.