Breaking Down Barriers: Making it Easier for Academic Librarians of Color to Stay

The strength of every nation lies in its people. In America, that strength can be found in the rich cultural heritage of a diverse nation. Unfortunately, diversity does not permeate all facets of life–specifically in academia and its libraries. The question continues to be asked: where are all of the academic librarians of color? For the ones who are tenured or who are seeking tenure, how can they be retained within the ranks of academia? The focus of this study is to explore and define some of the explicit and implicit barriers faced by academic librarians of color through a review of the literature. Many of the explicit barriers stem directly from racism and from being perceived as the “other” while implicit barriers are more subtle and stem from the covert damage that toxic environmental forces have on shaping the career and work experiences of librarians of color. This analysis also offers methods for breaking down these barriers (through ways such as mentoring) for institutions to consider—along with some strategies to empower librarians of color themselves.     

Problem or Challenge?

Summary

Every day at reference desks, public service points, and in library instruction, librarians assist people who are apprehensive about technology. There are assumptions in academe, held by librarians, faculty and administration, regarding students' technology savvy. Many of these assumptions are unfounded and incorrect. Librarians are challenged to serve those individuals technology has left behind with the same respect as those technologically up-to-speed. This paper is a discussion about technology anxiety, technophobe myths, and a theory of technophobic learning.     

The Perceptions of People of Color in Academic Libraries Concerning the Relationship Between Retention and Advancement as Middle Managers

ABSTRACT

A diverse workforce is important to librarianship. As a result, the recruitment of librarians of color has remained a priority; additionally, ensuring that those individuals are retained and advancing is of equal importance because it speaks to the profession's ability to maintain a diverse workforce. This article explores the interrelationship between retention and advancement for academic librarians of color working as middle managers. Through the use of narrative inquiry, the author found that several commonalities emerged among participants: the prevalence of internal promotions, lack of interest in senior leadership, and participation in library leadership institutes. The findings indicate that retention and advancement are two separate and distinct issues for librarians of color working as middle managers, with retention less of a concern. The findings also suggest that the relationship between the middle manager and his or her supervisor is critical to interest in advancement.     

Valuing Diversity:

Penfield Library at SUNY Oswego is in its fourth year of an innovative program to bring cultural diversity to its reference services. Jointly sponsored by the Library and the Office of Learning Support Services, the Library Reference Assistant (LRA) Program recruits and instructs students of color and non-traditional students in assesting librarians at the Reference Desk. Involving these students in the process of providing reference services makes a strong statement about our confidence in their ability to succeed and to serve as role models for non-traditional students and students of color. The sucess of the LRA Program has required a strong commitment on the part of both librarians and student participants in the development and implementation of this program. The LRA Program is serving as a model for similar programs in other SUNY libraries.     

A pilot study of the effects of faculty status for medical librarians in the United States

Objectives:Within many institutions, there are debates over whether medical librarians should be classified as faculty or professional staff, a distinction that may have considerable effect on the perception of librarians within their local institutions. This study is a pilot exploration of how faculty status may affect the professional experiences of academic medical librarians within their local institutions.Methods:Surveys were sent to 209 medical librarians listed as having some instructional function at Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) accredited medical institutions in the United States. Survey responses were captured using Qualtrics survey tool and analyzed for frequencies and associations using SPSS version 27.Results:Sixty-four medical librarians at academic medical institutions completed the survey developed for this study. Of the respondents, 60.9% indicated that librarians at their institution have faculty status, while 71.9% believe that librarians at their institution should have faculty status. Ninety percent of librarians with faculty status reported that they are expected to generate scholarly materials, compared to 28% of those without faculty status.Conclusions:Many medical libraries offer faculty status to librarians. While many medical librarians are active in instruction, research, and other activities normally associated with faculty status, it is not clear if faculty status impacts how librarians are perceived by other health care workers within their institutions.     

Making Sense of Fractured Identities: Male Professors’ Narratives of Sexual Harassment

The university has become a site of increased debate over policy and procedures as the experience of sexual harassment reaches all levels of the academic hierarchy. Although this topic has been researched thoroughly, few studies have explored sexual harassment through the voices of men in academe. In this study, sexual harassment is explored from the perspective of two men who are tenured, full professors at a southwestern university. This research employs narrative analysis to locate patterns of discourse that illuminate fractured identities. Through the examination of these fractures, this analysis exposes the ways gender, identity, and sexual harassment are intertwined within academe.     

Practices of Locating Health Information in an Electronic Environment: Reflections on Conducted Health Information Skills Training

ABSTRACT

Health information skills in an electronic environment are essential to health science librarians, who serve as educators both within and outside of their health training institutions. This reflective study was conducted to examine the application of online health information skills obtained from the training provided for librarians who are working in health settings. Health sciences librarians, as future information skills educators, therefore need to possess their own health information skill sets. Capacity building is vital in order to promote the development of health information skills for health sciences librarians who can then teach and advocate the concept of health information skills on the Internet within and outside of their places of work.     

A Community of Practice: Librarians in a Biomedical Research Network

Providing library and reference services within a biomedical research community presents special challenges for librarians, especially those in historically lower-funded states. These challenges can include understanding needs, defining and communicating the library's role, building relationships, and developing and maintaining general and subject specific knowledge. This article describes a biomedical research network and the work of health sciences librarians at the lead intensive research institution with librarians from primarily undergraduate institutions and tribal colleges. Applying the concept of a community of practice to a collaborative effort suggests how librarians can work together to provide effective reference services to researchers in biomedicine.     

Rethinking library service to distance education students: analyzing the embedded librarian model

Since fall 2009, reference librarians at The George Washington University's Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library have been embedded in online classes through Blackboard within the School of Nursing and School of Medicine and Health Sciences. The authors sought to determine the types of questions asked of the librarian, with the goal of informing future interactions with distance education classes to help develop a standard "protocol" for working with this population of students. Eighty-two questions were categorized and qualitatively analyzed. The findings have prompted librarians to explore tools such as Elluminate Live!, a tool that allows librarians to provide synchronous instruction within the Blackboard environment.     

Rethinking Library Service to Distance Education Students: Analyzing the Embedded Librarian Model

Since fall 2009, reference librarians at The George Washington University's Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library have been embedded in online classes through Blackboard within the School of Nursing and School of Medicine and Health Sciences. The authors sought to determine the types of questions asked of the librarian, with the goal of informing future interactions with distance education classes to help develop a standard “protocol” for working with this population of students. Eighty-two questions were categorized and qualitatively analyzed. The findings have prompted librarians to explore tools such as Elluminate Live!, a tool that allows librarians to provide synchronous instruction within the Blackboard environment.     

They think all of this is new: Leveraging librarians' project management skills for the digital humanities

ABSTRACT

This article will explore how to develop the holistic project management planning (PMP) mindset in different parts of the library when undertaking digital humanities (DH) projects. PMP skills do exist within libraries and librarians, but organizational alignment typically does not allow for the most effective applications of librarians' PMP skills to DH projects. This article will explore how the skills of public services librarians, technical services librarians and administrative librarians align with the PMP phases and the challenges that each kind of librarian has to overcome in completing successful DH projects.     

A Phenomenological Study of Conservative Academic Librarians

Librarianship posits itself as a profession that strives for neutrality, particularly within customer service and information provision; however, factors such as political activity, conference programming, and disproportionate representations of specific viewpoints in the literature indicate that neutrality may be compromised. These factors may alienate librarians who do not subscribe to majority political opinions within librarianship. A phenomenological study was conducted to understand the career experiences of academic librarians who identify as socially or politically conservative. Themes linking service provision, ethics, workplace relationships, and professional engagement emerged that demonstrate the professional impact politicized activity has on practicing librarians in all specialties.     

Religious Studies Encyclopedism: A Recent History

As academic reference librarians, we need to historically situate the reference sources we use within changing scholarly disciplines. Mircea Eliade’s Encyclopedia of Religion, for example, is an important text in religious studies, but it is not a neutral text. Rather, it clearly reflects certain intellectual commitments and discursive strategies that need to be situated within histories of scholarship. Failure on the part of librarians to contextualize the perspectives of a reference source is problematic because it leaves the assumptions of the text unchallenged. More constructively, librarians need to problematize the agendas of reference sources, and make salient their discursive positions.     

Get to Know Your Librarian: How a Simple Orientation Program Helped Alleviate Library Anxiety

Library orientations do their part to familiarize students with information literacy, and how the library fits within university life. But what if an orientation could give a student a strong introduction to their academic librarians? Research in academic libraries has noted that library anxiety remains a continual problem among current students. Valparaiso University librarians created the Get to Know Your Librarian program, which sought to make librarians accessible. Using humor and casualness, incoming students were “introduced” to librarians through a series of fun facts. This simple program was successful in helping alleviate incoming students’ library anxiety before their first semester.     

《普通高等学校图书馆规程(修订)》学习体会

论述了学习《普通高等学校图书馆规程(修订)》的体会，分析了(普通高等学校图书馆规程(修订)》对新形势下高校图书馆数字化献资源建设和服务、特色建设和资源共享、“学科馆员”的培养、网络建设和献信息传递的强调和重视。     

Neither Fish nor Fowl: A Role Theory Approach to Librarians Teaching

The teaching of IL primarily to undergraduate students in course-integrated, credit-bearing, or other hybrid settings has afforded academic librarians the opportunity to redefine their role within higher education, moving from a jurisdiction of access to one of expertise. While some academic librarians have viewed these shifting roles as a further strain upon an already heterogeneous profession, others have viewed teaching as an opportunity for academic librarians to be more engaged in teaching and learning, and more closely aligned with their classroom faculty counterparts. This article seeks to utilize Role Theory as a means to examine the dynamics of librarians as instructors, and information literacy as an academic discipline.     

论高校图书馆和谐人际关系的构建

构建和谐图书馆是创建和谐校园的需要,也是构建和谐社会的一项重要任务。而构建和谐图书馆的关键是构建和谐的人际关系。图书馆和谐的人际关系主要表现为馆领导与馆员之间的和谐,馆员与馆员之间的和谐,馆员与读者之间的和谐。     

Class act: Designing a portable approach to multimedia library instruction for the remote classroom

Bibliographic instruction programs in many academic libraries have become increasingly reliant upon computer technology. Limited network access and space constraints have often restricted instruction librarians to centralized teaching sites located within individual library facilities. Recent innovations in presentation technology now enable librarians to explore affordable solutions for decentralized instruction. This article describes a practical method used by librarians at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania for bringing computer-based library instruction into non-networked classrooms and other settings beyond the library's walls.     

Integrating Information Literacy and Evidence-Based Medicine Content within a New School of Medicine Curriculum: Process and Outcome

This column describes a process for integrating information literacy (IL) and evidence-based medicine (EBM) content within a new school of medicine curriculum. The project was a collaborative effort among health sciences librarians, curriculum deans, directors, and faculty. The health sciences librarians became members of the curriculum committees, developed a successful proposal for IL and EBM content within the curriculum, and were invited to become course instructors for Analytics in Medicine. As course instructors, the librarians worked with the other faculty instructors to design and deliver active learning class sessions based on a flipped classroom approach using a proprietary Information Mastery curriculum. Results of this collaboration may add to the knowledge base of attitudes and skills needed to practice as full faculty partners in curricular design and instruction.     

Providing Health Sciences Services in a Joint-Use Distributed Learning Library System: An Organizational Case Study

The purpose of this organizational case study is to describe the complexities librarians face when serving a multi-campus institution that supports both a joint-use library and expanding health sciences academic partnerships. In a system without a centralized health science library administration, liaison librarians are identifying dispersed programs and user groups and collaborating to define their unique service and outreach needs within a larger land-grant university. Using a team-based approach, health sciences librarians are communicating to integrate research and teaching support, systems differences across dispersed campuses, and future needs of a new community-based medical program.