Relationships between Teaching Faculty and Teaching Librarians

Citation

Turner, R. (2006), "Relationships between Teaching Faculty and Teaching Librarians", New Library World, Vol. 107 No. 7/8, pp. 361-363. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074800610677362

Collections of essays on any theme, let alone a major topical issue, rarely manage to come to grips with it in a comprehensive way. At best they give an overview of the various elements of the theme and can provide some interesting and useful articles on particular aspects. At worst they can be a bewildering arrangement of poorly selected, inappropriate and confusingly arranged pieces. Success depends on the editor and editing of the collection.

The theme of this work could scarcely be more relevant to both the teaching discipline and librarianship. In all sectors of education, the importance of liaison between library and teaching staff is paramount in the success of the library service, teaching and the information literacy of students. As Kraat states in her brief introduction, “Librarian/faculty relationships are critical to the success or failure of library instruction” (p. 3).

This collection of essays is not an in‐depth look at teacher/librarian interaction, but it is an excellent and practical overview of some of the issues affecting collaboration. Kraat has managed to get a good balance of case studies of liaison with more theoretical assessments of the relationship between faculty and librarians. Susan Kraat herself is an experienced professional who is a reference librarian and the Coordinator of Library instruction at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

Each article is well structured with a summary of the work, biographical information and good references, all of which are supplemented by a useful index at the end of the book. The only real concern comes from reading the references to each article and it is apparent that the articles in the book were written no later than early 2003 so there may be an issue with how current this information is.

The opening article is an inspiring report on the collaboration between library staff and the Educational Psychology and Counseling faculty at California State University Northridge. Lynn Lampert explains the roadmap to collaboration between discipline and library faculty, along with an interesting literature review. The importance of integrating information literacy into the faculty curriculum is fully appreciated and provides an excellent role model for other faculties looking to develop this route. As Lampert states, “Continual interaction between librarians and faculty is needed to ensure student success in information retrieval and foster the development of cognitive thinking skills needed to critically evaluate retrieved sources” (p. 21).

Following on from this case study, Lisa Given and Heidi Julien use content analysis of the listserv BI‐L/ILI‐L postings from 1995 to 2002 to investigate librarians' perceptions of faculty/librarian relationships. The findings reveal misconceptions of roles and perceived apathy by faculty members. Given and Julien try to address these problems by emphasising the importance of respect, both for and towards librarians and faculty members.

A later article by Peggie Partello, of Keene State College, reports on a survey conducted by the author to determine how librarians and library directors feel about librarians teaching outside the library, i.e. in academic disciplines. This professor librarian model has many benefits, especially in developing an understanding of teaching and learning on campus. Partello makes the important point that “Whether librarians teach outside the library or not, we need to learn to teach” (p. 115).

Nicole Auer and Ellen Krupar from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University discuss their expanded roles as librarians in the teaching role. This role includes grading coursework and assignments which have utilised the information literacy input of the authors. Assessment of student skills will raise the profile of the librarian both in the eyes of students and teachers. This will only work if sufficient time and resources are allocated for production of such courses, delivery, grading and feedback to students. The article also includes examples of the worksheets used.

William Badke's article on helping faculty to understand the educational power of information literacy addresses the very real issue of there being a lot of literature about information literacy but implementation can still be a struggle because of differences in cultures of working. He persuasively and realistically reinforces the argument that the integration of information literacy credit courses into curricula can help to overcome cultural conflict.

A further case study, by Michelle Toth, examines the integration of a research skills and strategies, and writing styles, course into an MA program at Plattsburgh State University. This paper outlines the evolution of this program and the role of the librarian in its development. This paper is followed by a look at collaboration between teaching and library staff in the delivery of an engineering program at the University of Pittsburgh.

Other chapters address faculty‐librarian collaboration to integrate technology in a course that focuses on teaching empirical research methodologies and library research skills to education students at Wayne State University, Detroit; an ethnographic study of attitudes influencing faculty collaboration in library instruction by Kate Manuel et al. from New Mexico State University; and finally a case study from the State University of New York at New Paltz which discusses the collection of campus information resources and liaison training sessions, collectively known as The Library Liaison Toolkit.

While there are always problems of adequate coverage in such collections of articles as appear in this book, Kraat has managed to produce a well balanced selection of articles that are both practical and academically well researched. The selection would have benefited from some non‐USA examples of best practice and case studies. The articles in this work are generally inspiring and informative, and demonstrate the enthusiasm of many library and information professionals in fusing the librarian and teacher roles to benefit the information literacy of students. The work is primarily for, and about, tertiary (university) education, but the articles are interesting to read for all teaching and library professionals and many of the lessons are transferable to other sectors. The issue of teacher/librarian collaboration is one that affects all levels of education and, therefore, this book is welcome as a contribution to this important aspect of education.