Author: rdlankes

There is no one way to run or structure a library. The days when there was a single model for an academic library, if they ever existed, are gone. The idea that the academic library is a store house of books and materials is gone. The notion that a library can serve off to the side of the mission of the university is gone. What is needed today is a commitment by university administration and librarians to reinvent the whole concept of academic libraries. Not simply to effect rankings, or for the benefit of librarians. No, we must recreate the library to propel forward the mission and reputation of the university at large.

Leveraging the whole of the University and increasing the scholarly reputation of it is going to be difficult. Doing it school by school, department by department, and faculty member by faculty member is a long process. But imagine creating a corp of knowledge professionals dedicated to that mission. A corp of radical positive change agents already embedded in the lives of faculty, students, and staff. That corp should be the librarians of the university.

To be sure, this will not happen overnight. To be sure this corp is not always ready…yet. They need motivation, support, and a vision to drive them forward. They need continuous training, and they need a culture of innovation and exploration, not policy and passivity. The corp may not have the culture and tools they need, but they can in short order. The corp may even lack the self-confidence and rewards to press forward, but it can gain these in action. With leadership, and with a renewed understanding that they are not competing with other academic libraries, this corp of librarians can mobilize, and forward a noble field that has helped universities, and societies, thrive for over 3 millennia.

[The following program proposal is part of an ongoing series on Reinventing the Academic Library. It is intended as an example of the kinds of things librarians supporting a research-intensive university can do.]

Making the Most Important Decision a Faculty Makes More Informed

Tenure is a major commitment. It should be made with the best information. Each year all faculty being considered for tenure will have an assigned librarian who will provide intensive citation analysis of their works. This goes beyond simple citation counts, it incorporates the latest in new and alternative metrics to measure impact.

This service provides all involved in the tenure process with objective and in depth data to aid in this most important of decisions.

Further Talking Points

Universities talk about strengthening their reputations. Reputations must be supported by evidence of impact. A natural extension of an agenda in scholarly communication, a robust publisher of the university, and librarians embedded into research is the ability to tell a more accurate and compelling story of scholarly achievement.

By tasking librarians with a sort of case load of upcoming tenure cases, the university can directly inject real measures of impact and best practices into the tenure and promotion process. Papers on alt metrics and new forms of citation analysis inform tenure packages, and provost briefings.

There are other benefits of tying librarians into the the tenure process. A real and up to date inventory of the scholarly output of the university can be created. Librarians can learn more about the work of faculty, and find better ways to support this work. Preprint archives can migrate from a document repository to a living open access journal available to the world, and highlighting the strength of the University research to other institutions.

[The following program proposal is part of an ongoing series on Reinventing the Academic Library. It is intended as an example of the kinds of things librarians supporting a research-intensive university can do.]

Reinventing the Academic Press to be a Publisher of the Community

University presses used to be selective imprints – focused on a thin slice of the perspective of a university. Imagine a new university press that works directly with faculty across all the schools to develop new forms of publishing. The libraries will be an innovator in self-publishing, and developing new platforms to turn scholarship into action and benefit for society.

Instead of page counts and indexes, the new university press will produce apps, courseware, and podcasts in addition to monographs.

Further Talking Points

The librarians shall create a fertile field of scholarship and instruction by working to propel forward the academic units of the campus. This must include a robust platform for scholars, instructors, students, and staff to disseminate their ideas, and engage the larger domains and society in conversations. This platform is not simply moving from printing books to producing eBooks. This platform must reach deep into the academic foment. New ideas for grants need to be shared, discussed, and refined. Funded research needs a mechanism to gather, store, and share data and insights. Finished projects need to both be archived and continuously related to new efforts…building a long clear map of success and progress.

To go beyond artifacts and typical domains, the new academic press is a publisher of the community. Illustrations, lectures, books, data sets all need to be managed and maintained. This is not about simply blogging, or creating a document repository. This is about taking the most exciting part of scholarship – the debates and investigations – and making them accessible to the world. It is about publishing an academic article and marrying it to a forum, and courseware, and ongoing research.

[The following program proposal is part of an ongoing series on Reinventing the Academic Library. It is intended as an example of the kinds of things librarians supporting a research-intensive university can do.]

The Library Serves as a Hub for New Forms of Instruction

MOOCs; continuous education; alumni teaching; intensive programs to improve STEM education: the library plays a unique role in spanning disciplinary boundaries to identify, understand, and disseminate innovative educational models. All programs are co-sponsored with an academic unit on campus. No more stand alone instruction.

Through programs like “hack the campus” and “lock in doctoral research weekends” librarians team with the university’s best faculty to produce the best graduates.

Further Talking Points

Production teams and “Hack the University” are just two types of educational innovation that librarians can facilitate. It makes sense that all programs of the library have an instructional angle, because librarianship is all about knowledge and learning. Books, databases, rare books, images, even the very building, are tools to accelerate and enhance learning.

Just as a mission of accelerating the scholarly conversation creates a natural research agenda for librarians, so too does it make the library into an ideal incubator of instructional experimentation. By understanding new methods of instruction online and in person (and most often in a hybrid setting) librarians can advance their own curriculum of information literacy. They can also serve as valuable partners with faculty and IT services in areas such as distance education.

However, the real potential for library-based instructional innovation is in the potent of a continuous education model. Rather than looking at the university as a sort of commencement provider (starting people in careers with a bachelors degree, adding management and depth in a  masters program, or depth and research skills with a doctoral degree) what if the University was able to expand to starting people in a degree, but sustaining them throughout their life with continuous access to expertise (faculty, graduate students, staff, other alums)? Imagine a knowledge hub where alumni and others regularly interact with the University to both increase their skills, certify their learning, and teach the next generation of alums.

All over the university folks are struggling with new modes of instruction. From the flipped classroom to MOOCs to online education, these efforts need to be brought together. Creating a hub for this innovation allows the library to adequately support new forms of instruction, but more importantly, it speeds diffusion of innovative practices to all corners of the campus. The world that higher education lives in is changing rapidly, and the university is ripe for disruptive change. Rather than wait for this to happen to the University, the University would foster disruptive change that forces other institutions to respond.

[The following program proposal is part of an ongoing series on Reinventing the Academic Library. It is intended as an example of the kinds of things librarians supporting a research-intensive university can do.]

Integrating Students Across the Campus in Library Service

Students in different disciplines can gain invaluable real world experience applying their classroom learning to real problems in a functioning library. Students will work shoulder by shoulder with library professionals in exploring how information changes industries and disciplines.

Rather than checking out a book; faculty, students, and staff can check out engineers, coders, illustrators, and the range of university expertise.

Further Talking Points

Learning theory and advances in instruction have shown us the importance of fusing research and practice. The ideal courses are combinations of practica and symposia. However, where can university bound students get access to real problems – particularly the most meaningful problems that cut across the boundaries of classes, schools, and disciplines? The short answer can be the library.

Through internships, independent studies, work-study, hourly positions, and class projects, teams of students can work with production librarians. Faculty needs a website? A production team takes control. Not only do they produce code, images, designs, and such, but the librarian works across the library, IT services, and home departments to ensure that projects meet quality standards, and can be sustained and preserved over time.

Student/librarian/specialist teams will work hand in hand with a revitalized and expanded publisher of the university to make sure projects have impact. Students learn, faculty excel, librarians facilitates. Authentic learning takes place that is measurable.