College and Research Libraries


Editorial 

Working with Faculty 

The topic of this editorial is one that de-
serves to be revisited and reconsidered fre-
quently. Working with faculty is perhaps 
one of the more important things that aca-
demic librarians do. Realizing that many 
academic librarians also are faculty, this 
editorial is focused on those faculty who 
are not employed in the library. 

Peggy Johnson (University of Minne-
sota Libraries) recently gave a full-day pro-
gram on the topic of faculty liaison at the 
University of Michigan Library. She did a 
commendable job in meeting with differ-
ent groups to describe the various aspects 
of this important endeavor. While listen-
ing to her, my mind began racing from 
the primitive days of building liaison with 
faculty to today and tomorrow's growing 
sophistication in working with faculty. 

In some way, most academic librarians 
communicate with faculty members. 
Titles such as bibliographer, coordinator, 
faculty contact person, faculty liaison, 
and subject specialist are used to desig-
nate those librarians who work more di-
rectly with the faculty. 

Librarians engage in a broad range of 
activities with faculty, including select-
ing paper and electronic resources, de-
signing library instructional programs 
for students, writing research grants, 
team-teaching, and a number of other 
joint endeavors. 

E-mail has made a significant differ-
ence in the communication between li-
brary staff and faculty. Via e-mail, librar-
ians from all areas of the library construct 
can communicate conveniently with fac-
ulty about new acquisitions, different 
ways to access materials not owned by 
the library, relevant events being spon-
sored by the library, and the umpteen other 
exciting things happening in the library. 

Chief Instigators of Use 
Have you ever given serious 
thought to how much library 
use would come from stu-
dents without faculty involve-
ment? How many students really and 
truly use the library for the pure enjoy-
ment of learning? Of course, there are 
some; but the bulk of students, especially 
undergraduates, come to the library to 
check out materials, conduct research, 
and read materials on reserve as a result 
of faculty assignments or recommenda-
tions. Unfortunately, there is little evi-
dence to support or correlate a student's 
rate of library use with grade point aver-
age. Some bright students have boasted 
about graduating summa cum laude 
without setting foot in the library! These 
students have done themselves a great 
disservice by not learning the literature 
and informational resources in their re-
spective disciplines. Notwithstanding the 
fine work the library staff does with li-
brary orientation, we depend on the fac-
ulty to make meaningful library assign-
ments in order for students to learn more 
about the treasures held by the library 
and the electronic access mechanisms. 
One of the more important ingredients 
of education is the stimulation of in-
quiry; librarians and faculty should do 
everything possible to encourage the 
unleashing of this curiosity. Here is 
where the library is so critical, because 
it offers answers to a multitude of 
questions and poses new questions 
that cry out for answers. 

Reeducating the Faculty 
If use of the library's resources is largely 
dependent on faculty instigation, then we 
must continuously improve our liaison 

498 



with the faculty. Based merely on the re-
actions that some academic libraries ex-
perienced during the transition from the 
card catalog to the online catalog, some 
faculty are not elated about the transfor-
mation of the library from reliance on its 
local paper collection to the emerging de-
pendence on global electronic resources. 
Speaking flippantly, most of us can say 
that we know a few faculty who believe 
the new technology is only a fad that will 
soon disappear. Speaking earnestly, how-
ever, most of the faculty realize that the 
new information environment is here to 
stay and look forward to reaping benefits 
from improvements in the scholarly com-
munication process. 

With the unprecedented rate of change 
we are experiencing with digital/ elec-
tronic resources, we academic librarians 
certainly have to "run faster to stay in 
place." For evidence of this speed of 
change, we have only to look at the 
changes that have occurred with the 
World Wide Web during the past year. 
Last year's Web has little resemblance to 
this year's Web! What happened to Go-
pher? Is Mosaic dead? Will our users be 
able to find happiness soon on the Web 
without HTML (hypertext markup lan-
guage)? How many of our faculty know 
the Web is hypertext, interactive, and 
multimedia? 

The point I am trying to make is that 
we have an entirely new domain that re-
quires much work in reeducating the fac-
ulty on how to use the scholarly re-
sources. We must become more active in 
our work with the faculty; we cannot 
wait for them to come to us. We must 
take the initiative in inviting ourselves 
to faculty departmental meetings to talk 
about the changing information access 

Editorial 499 

and delivery systems. If we thought it 
was discouraging when some faculty 
showed little interest in the paper col-
lection, we undoubtedly face a larger 
challenge in introducing faculty to the 
electronic resources. Issues related to 
electronic access, site licenses, copy-
right/intellectual property, network se-
curity, certification of information pro-
viders, and a Web browser on every 
desktop are becoming a necessary part 
of our nomenclature in our work with 
the faculty. 

New Challenges, New Rewards 
It is not uncommon to learn that less 
than 50 percent of an institution's fac-
ulty come to the library on a regular 
basis. Many faculty who are productive 
in research and publish frequently in 
scholarly publications depend on stu-
dent employees to visit the library to 
retrieve the necessary resources. With 
larger numbers of journals and reference 
books becoming available online and 
greater desktop availability to electronic 
resources throughout the world, will we 
witness even fewer faculty coming to the 
library? The answer is likely to be "yes." 
If there is one group of people on our 
campuses who can truly serve as the 
"navigators" who locate, filter, and cus-
tomize information, it is the librarians. 
We should not only meet this challenge, 
but exceed the expectations of our user 
community. There is a long history of 
faculty respecting and appreciating the 
fine work of librarians. In the new infor-
mation environment, we librarians have 
a grand opportunity to raise our value 
on campus. Now is the time for us to 
seize the moment! 

DONALD E. RIGGS 



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