Effectiveness of a liaison program in meeting information needs of college of pharmacy faculty

This article describes the creation and implementation of focus groups to evaluate the effectiveness of a health sciences library's liaison program of the College of Pharmacy faculty and to better understand the faculty's information needs in order to design new and improved library services. The liaison services support the teaching and research needs of faculty and students through literature research, classroom teaching, and an extensive library collection of pharmacy literature. Focus group results demonstrated a high level of satisfaction with library liaison services and collections. Opportunities exist for expanded interaction with graduate students and greater marketing of library services to increase faculty awareness of specific library programs.     

FROM THE EDITOR

Abstract

This paper reports on a survey of faculty perceptions of the role of the library in online distance education. The study is second in a series of related studies exploring The Pennsylvania State University's library services to patrons at a distance. In 2004, faculty of the World Campus (Penn State's online distance education program) were surveyed on their perceptions of e-learners' research needs. The faculty responded to questions on how their students access research information for their courses, whether they require their students to use the library as part of their courses, and their expectations of the library as an academic support service. The survey revealed that 60% of the responding faculty supply all of the required research information to students in their courses, and 62% do not require students to use the library as part of their course(s). The study concludes that online, distance-education faculty members have minimal to moderate expectations of the library in supporting their teaching and their students' research needs. Moreover, the study shows a significant lack of faculty awareness of existing library services and resources available to the e-learning community.     

Free or Fee Based Library in the Year 2000

ABSTRACT

With the rapid rise in distance education and online courses, the need to provide effective library services to the faculty and students involved in online courses is vitally important. Traditional services cannot always be transferred easily to the online environment and may need to be modified, or new services may need to be created to meet the needs of online users. This article examines the needs and wants of faculty involved in offering online courses. A Web-based survey was administered to faculty teaching an online course within the past 2 years at the authors’ organization. Faculty were asked a series of questions including their use of current library services, their emphasis on students using library services, and the services and resources they would like the library to provide in the future. Questions for the survey were inspired by LibQual comments received during our 2005 and 2007 surveys as well as comments received from both faculty and students while teaching and participating in online courses. Faculty who took the survey teach in a variety of disciplines and have different experience levels with teaching online courses. Results of the survey will be presented along with inferences from the current literature. The audience will be invited to share their innovative service ideas. Participants will gain ideas for updated or new services to faculty teaching online courses.     

The Global Library: Providing Resources and Services to International Sites

As institutions of higher learning focus on positioning strategically in the global and online education market, it is critical for academic libraries to realize their roles in supporting the institutional missions, one of which is to assist scholars, faculty, and students, regardless of location. This responsibility is fulfilled not only through the talents and dedication of librarians and library staff, but also with technology. The Brooklyn Campus Library of Long Island University (LIU) seized the opportunity and took a proactive approach to providing library resources and services to the university's Global College (GC) community. After carefully evaluating the needs of faculty and students across the globe, the authors recount how the library supports the teaching and learning activities of this unique user group. A library portal enables users at various international sites to use the library's abundant resources and customized services with ease, as well as to ensure that the library serves the Global College's mission of scholarly achievement. This article describes the LIU Brooklyn Campus Library's efforts to promote and implement customized resources and services to users on different continents.     

Social media as a platform in academic library marketing: A comparative study

Social media like Facebook have become popular tools for different organizations like libraries in marketing practice. To build relationships with library users, libraries hope social media can engage its user communities actively with their collections, services, and activities. This paper aims at evaluating the effectiveness of using social media as a platform in marketing through a questionnaire on the Facebook page of the University of Hong Kong Libraries (HKUL), comparing the perspectives of students and faculty members. Both the current situation of HKUL's Facebook page and the reasons affecting users' interest and participation in the page are evaluated, in order to suggest better strategies for the library to deal with the needs of library users in the future. Other university libraries can also gain new insights from the study.This research has the following key findings: 1. The marketing practices of HKUL's Facebook page generally did not receive adequate attention and reactions from users; 2. Students were more engaged than faculty members in HKUL's Facebook page, as students use more varieties of library services than faculty members; 3. User needs, social media content, and interactions generally affected user acceptance of the library's Facebook marketing.     

Profiles in Resource Sharing: Tom Bruno

Abstract

Health sciences libraries are expanding services that use online technologies to support teaching, research, and clinical care needs. Saint Louis University's Health Sciences Center (SLU HSC) Library has developed strong, user-centered, online services in interlibrary loan, bibliographic instruction, and electronic reserves. The authors present their successful experiences in using electronic technologies to improve library services.

Journal articles are provided, often the same day as requested through interlibrary loan, and delivered in electronic format using OCLC's ILLiad program. First-year SLU medical students now complete a self-paced, all online, Health Information Resources course that targets the most relevant biomedical resources, reduces student study time, and is viewed as a model for the entire curriculum. ERes, the electronic reserves program, allows faculty to provide course materials that are accessible at the convenience of students 24 hours a day. These online programs are examples of using electronic technologies to better support user needs for excellent library services.     

Serving Community Faculty Through a Dedicated Liaison

Community-based medical schools rely heavily on volunteer faculty to provide medical education. Volunteer faculty consist of health care professionals, primarily physicians, who commit to educating medical students and residents. While these volunteer faculty are typically unpaid, many medical schools provide some benefits to them for volunteering their time. One such benefit, although rarely noted in library or medical education literature, is access to academic medical library resources and services. This article highlights a library services liaison model dedicated to the support of volunteer faculty at a community-based medical school.     

Going Global: Providing Library Resources and Services to International Sites

ABSTRACT

The Brooklyn campus library of Long Island University (LIU) seized the opportunity to take a proactive approach to providing library resources and services to the university's Global College community. An active link connecting the library, Global College headquarters, and international sites has been created. After carefully evaluating the needs of faculty and students across the globe, the authors recount how the library supports the teaching and learning activities of this unique user group. This article describes the LIU Brooklyn campus library's efforts to promote and implement customized resources and services to users on different continents.     

Faculty perceptions,use, and needs of library resource and services in a public research university

This research aims to examine whether faculty's perceptions of the importance of the library's resources and services for their teaching, clinical practice or research were different based on disciplines, and to explore the degree that faculty's perceptions of the library's importance and its role have changed over time. The findings revealed that online journals, databases, and Interlibrary loan (ILL) were considered by the majority of faculty as the most important for faculty's research. Another key finding indicated that faculty from social sciences perceived assistance from a subject specialist librarian as more important than faculty members from physical sciences. The top three strategies faculty use to obtain articles not available through the university include searching for a freely available online version, using ILL, and obtaining it from Google Scholar. These findings assist the library to better understand our user community's needs. As this survey is regularly deployed, it also allows us to observe potential changes over time, and as necessary, make strategic changes to library resources and services.     

Implementing a Library Liaison Program

Abstract

A pilot library liaison program was initiated with the College of Liberal Arts at Southern Illinois University at Carbon-dale. The goals were to facilitate communication with academic faculties, enhance collection development, and improve services. A uniform training program was implemented. Budgets were allocated, and negotiations for new moneys were held in a group setting. Following training, meetings were held with academic department chairs, library liaisons, and the library's Director of Reference Services and Collection Management to activate the program. The pilot program was assessed and then expanded to all sixty teaching departments on campus, using guidelines that had evolved during the pilot program. The centrality of the library as a service unit is affirmed in increased understanding and cooperation between librarians and teaching faculty. The program is continually monitored in an effort to keep the program flexible and responsive to changing needs.     

Utilizing syllabi to support access services and beyond: A case study

New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Library receives copies of all course syllabi to provide a number of services to faculty and students related to acquisitions, access, collection development, subject liaison, and library instruction. Access services and acquisitions staff, as well as subject liaison librarians, work together using specific workflows to ensure that subject-relevant materials are selected and purchased on an ongoing basis and access needs are met by course reserves or the learning management system. Additionally, the library works closely with the NYUAD Bookstore, which also receives textbook orders, to ensure that students have access to all required and supplementary materials on the first day of classes.     

Opinions and experiences of university faculty regarding library research instruction: Results of a web-based survey at the University of Southern Colorado

In March 2000, all 188 University of Southern Colorado (USC) nonlibrary faculty members were surveyed to determine their needs and opinions regarding library research instruction. Forty-four (23.40%) of the faculty responded to questions concerning their past experiences with library research instruction, the frequency with which they use various library and Internet resources, the types of library research instruction they currently use with their students, and their level of support for proposed new programs. Results showed an overwhelming interest on the part of respondents for an online library research skills tutorial. The survey also revealed the need for professional development opportunities for faculty. A higher proportion of respondents with 10 years or less of teaching experience than those with more than 10 years of experience indicated they had received formal library instruction from a librarian. However, no direct correlation could be shown between years of teaching experience and respondents' perceived value of library research instruction. Nor did a correlation exist to show that respondents with fewer years of teaching experience were more likely to ask a librarian to provide formal library instruction to their students. In fact, respondents with more than 20 years of teaching experience provided most types of library instruction more often than less experienced respondents. Overall, USC faculty rated their students' abilities to conduct library research very low. However, they had slightly more confidence in their students' abilities to find, evaluate, and use information they found on the Internet over information from traditional print sources.     

国外高校图书馆学科馆员服务模式

学科馆员是图书馆中对某一学科领域的用户提供专门服务的图书馆。国外高校学科馆员的职责主要有以下方面：①作为图书馆和院系/所之间的联络人;②学科信息资源服务;③学科信息素养教育;④馆藏资源建设;⑤参考咨询服务。对学科馆员的要求较高,首先必须有图书馆硕士学历,具有对口学科的背景知识或工作经验,并有教学能力、公关能力、语言表达能力和信息技术技能。最后介绍在新西兰奥克兰大学图书馆做学科馆员的经验。     

Assessing Academic Library Services to Distance Learners: A Literature Review of Perspectives from Librarians,Students, and Faculty

Many academic libraries are expanding services to online and distance students to keep pace with enrollment trends in higher education, prompting additional research to evaluate the use and effectiveness of library reference and instruction services to distance users. This literature review explores this research from the perspectives of academic librarians, distance students, and faculty teaching online and distance courses, and finds both commonalities and contradictions among these viewpoints.     

Establishing a Baseline: History,Evolution and Evaluation of Grand Valley State University's Off-Campus Library Services

ABSTRACT

The model replacing a dedicated off-campus library services (OCLS) unit was one in which librarians provide services to both on- and off-campus students and faculty within their liaison disciplines. A year after this model was implemented, faculty in subjects taught both on- and off-campus were surveyed to assess their awareness of library resources and whether this awareness impacted course assignment design. Findings from this survey combined with a planned review of off-campus course syllabi will help identify areas of concern and lead to ways to strengthen awareness and usage of library resources.     

Self-Efficacy of Academic Librarians: Implications for Public Services Managers

The question of academic librarian status has resulted in academic librarians approaching relationships with faculty as one of deference, where they cede power to disciplinary faculty regardless of their own expertise. To date, no research has explored why academic librarians engage in deference behavior when working with disciplinary faculty. Self-efficacy, a person's beliefs in their ability to perform a task, may be an appropriate theoretical framework to begin exploring this behavior. This pilot study explores the perceived self-efficacy of Colorado academic librarians holding an instruction and/or liaison role (n = 68) in order to examine academic librarians' levels of perceived self-efficacy and its relationship to faculty status and years in profession. Results indicate that there is not a significant relationship between perceived self-efficacy and faculty status or years in profession but that gender is significantly associated with perceived self-efficacy. Results also indicate a change in self-efficacy as library faculty progress between faculty ranks. Avenues for future research on academic librarian self-efficacy are suggested and implications for public services managers are discussed.     

Building the College Library Collection to Support Curriculum Growth

Because the mission of smaller academic libraries serving fewer than 10,000 full-time enrolled students is mainly to serve the curriculum-based needs of students and faculty, collection management in these libraries needs to be directly related to changes in the curriculum of the parent institution. A look into applicable collection management literature, combined with one library's experience, offers insights about effective curriculum-based collection building in a smaller academic library setting. To achieve efficiency, collection managers must maintain up-to-date knowledge of changing instructional and research needs at their institutions, the needs new programs have for library materials, appropriate collection assessment tools, and the tasks involved in a focused expansion project. By optimizing consultations with faculty and evaluation procedures scaled to its needs, the library at North Georgia College & State University, a modestly sized academic institution, established a model for becoming an active participant in new course and program planning during the application stage, ensuring appropriate library support for new courses and programs of study.     

Information technology courses and their relationship to faculty in different professional ranks in library and information science programs

This study investigated information technology (IT) courses offered in American Library Association–accredited library and information science (LIS) programs and the role of faculty with different professional ranks in teaching those courses. More than 20% of the courses offered in 42 programs in the academic year 2002 are IT-related, and 57% of the programs require one particular IT course as part of their core requirements for the master's degree. The contents of the IT courses range widely and go beyond traditional library settings. Faculty with different professional ranks teach significantly different subject areas of the IT courses. Almost half of the junior faculty and more than half of the senior faculty are from multidisciplinary fields; others have a traditional LIS background. Junior faculty's predominant research areas are as follows: information issues; information needs, information-seeking behavior, and information services; cognitive science; systems analysis and evaluation; and information organization.     

When Life Hands You Lemons: Overcoming Obstacles to Expand Services in an Embedded Librarian Program

ABSTRACT

Having launched a pilot program of embedding librarians in faculty Blackboard courses, a team of university regional campus librarians reviewed their library services to faculty teaching online, off-campus, and traditional courses, and returned for Round 2. Just as the library services offered in this collaborative effort were taking off, conditions worsened. A storm of staff reductions, budget cuts, and administrative reorganization hit. Despite the climate of uncertainty and challenges, the embedded librarians persevered as they are convinced of the value of collaborating with faculty in Blackboard as active academic research consultants to further students’ information literacy skills. Project Information Literacy's findings validate this strategic solution. Consequently, the embedded librarians assessed users and implemented sustaining practices to the program to maximize its impact. Moving in the right direction is essential and doable, no matter the difficulties.     

The Special Library on Campus

Abstract

A library and media center orientation program was developed for administrators, faculty and support staff after examining their information seeking behaviors, prior research, and demographics of this group. The goal of the orientation was to promote the library's and media center's services and resources; to encourage this user group to make use of them; and to teach the basic skills needed to address their information needs. This article includes a literature review; explanation of the processes involved in creating a library orientation program for this group; and discussion including ideas and thoughts as to where further research about this user group or library orientation programs might be beneficial.