‘Working together: evolving value for academic libraries’ is a six-month research project investigating the value of academic libraries for teaching and research staff. SAGE commissioned LISU to undertake the research in December 2011. Now halfway through the project, two UK case studies are complete, and those in US and Scandinavia are underway.
Some initial results were compiled into a short presentation to coincide with the UKSG conference. This can be found on the project website, along with a short summary of the findings so far, here: http://libraryvalue.wordpress.com/publications/.
From initial results, based only on the UK case studies, there is some evidence that the place of the library is aligned with the university strategic goals and vision. There is also evidence that library input is valued at a high level within the institution, participating on standing and ad-hoc committees such as the ‘Learning &Teaching Committee’, ‘Research Committee’, and a panel undertaking a University-wide review of all subjects.
For teaching staff, libraries were both proactive as well as reactive to academics’ needs and requests. They hold group sessions branded as ‘teaching sessions’ or ‘information sessions’, not ‘information literacy’: The ‘information literacy’ label is seen as technical jargon, which can be off-putting for both academic staff as well as students, who find it difficult to understand what it means.
They are exploring integration into the institutional VLE, and also act as a conduit between publishers and academics in how best to provide material for students. They are recognising there is a range of different types of academics, and that academic staff do not always know what the library can provide.
For the research community, some are offering information skills training for academics on a one-to-one basis, even going out to their office. It was mentioned that academic staff don’t respond very well to the idea of being trained – so those sessions are often called ‘awareness raising’ or ‘engagement’ or ‘library skills’ sessions.
They are offering skills training for doctoral students, including support with working up grant applications and REF submissions; information on Open Access (OA) repositories, and support for OA publishing; plus information on publication, bibliometrics, and citations. Academic staff often find it difficult to identify bibliometrics and REF-related issues as part of the library’s expertise.
On communication, librarians were meeting with academics through departmental meetings, a library-faculty user group (staff + students), and by having departmental library representatives. Personal relationships and informal communication seemed to be essential in building good working relationships with academic departments. However, communication was found to vary from one department to another and also from one individual to another. For example, there seemed to be stronger relationships with the Humanities than the Sciences.
Marketing was seen as important. One commented that they pick up ideas from other departments who market their services to teaching and research staff, and copy their successes. Another comment was that outreach by one section of the library, e.g. the Special Collections team, promotes the library overall. Getting rid of jargon was viewed as key.
The perception of the library by faculty was viewed to differ by discipline and by individual. Some faculty are very appreciative, and know what the library does. Others are less engaged and less appreciative of the work librarians do, and put off by the jargon of librarianship. There was a comment that changing perceptions doesn’t happen overnight – it takes work! To do this, they suggest engaging with academics to change perceptions, find out where inaccurate perceptions exist, and target promotion and awareness-raising.
In the context of fee revisions and NSS scores, libraries are aware that they need to be able to demonstrate their value, therefore need to use the evidence they have. Evidence was mainly anecdotal, but there was an increasing use of surveys to gather hard evidence. Staff feedback can provide powerful direct evidence of impact for particular services. KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) were also collected regularly and reported to provide more indirect evidence.
There were key drivers for demonstrating value: the REF and Student fees, but also wider university strategy. The library must align with wider institutional goals, and show how it contributes to those goals. Value for money is key, overall, but also in the context of individual resources and services, especially subscribed services, which are becoming ever more costly.
The next stage of this project will be to release a short survey for librarians in the geographic regions that case studies are taking place, which will help to validate the findings from what is a relatively small number of case studies. This will go live shortly, and we would like to encourage everyone to fill it in, and let us know what you think about library value. You can comment on the blog at http://libraryvalue.wordpress.com/.
Kind regards,
Mithu
Mithu Lucraft (Mrs)
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