Librarian-Faculty Collaboration

Blog #11:  What are different types of librarian-faculty collaboration? 
What are the benefits and costs of such collaboration?
Describe an "aha" moment you had this week, if any. 

Several years ago, I took a combined graduate/undergraduate Brit Lit course at the U of M.  As we were starting an extensive research paper assignment, a sophomore in the class raised her hand and asked if the professor could spend some time going over MLA format.  The professor seemed quite irritated and stated that if students did not know it by now, they would have to make a trip to the library.  He simply did not feel he could take the time to do this in class (or, evidently, during his office hours).  On some level, I do understand the professor's reluctance to give up his lectures and class discussions on the content.  But I also feel that especially at the undergraduate level not discussing how to write in the field and then grading students on how well they can write in the field is...well, unethical.  And the professor's vague directive to the student, to "visit the library" did not seem helpful at all.

Had the professor had some sort of a partnership with a librarian, this could have helped this student--and all of the class, really, even the graduate students.  Faculty cannot just assume that students have picked up this knowledge somewhere along the way. There are many ways a librarian-faculty partnership could happen.  One is the one-shot model that I've experienced here at St. Kate's.  Giving up even just one class period to take the class to the library or have a librarian come into the class, though certainly not ideal, is much better than nothing. At the reference desk, I have worked with many students who did not really remember much of the one-shot lesson, but they did remember that they could come and ask librarians for help.  That, at least, is a start.

Of course there are better models of partnerships that we read about for this week.  One is to "embed" a librarian within every department. These librarians become subject area specialists and are seen as accessible resources for students. They might be housed in the department, make frequent class visits, and be listed in the course's D2L page.  The best collaboration, however, happens before the class even starts as a "blended librarian." In my Observations and Analysis paper, I cited a study from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in which librarians and faculty sat down and looked at potential class assignments together.  The result was that librarians became much more knowledgeable about what students were expected to do, and the professors were much more aware of the information literacy demands that were embedded within their assignments.  Working together like this at the assignment--and even course design stage benefits everyone--librarians, faculty, and most importantly, the students.