Academic Librarianship

I’m the liaison for First Year Experience and am familiar with the term helicopter parents. These are parents who hover around their children, contacting the university to keep tabs on their children. We’ve all heard of the extreme cases (ie. asking to go on job interviews with their children). A recent study however, suggests that those students with close ties to their parents are more satisfied with their university experience. On the flip side, these students often have lower grades. An interesting point – are the parents involved because the students need extra help or is the relationship hurting the students but not allowing for full growth?

I’ve grappled with what role we should have with parents. I’m not convinced that over involvement at the university level is a good thing but it is a fact that students still approach parents and friends as first line help. I’d considered holding a parent’s orientation, and this year our marketing, communications and outreach librarian held our first parent’s night and it was a success. Parents appreciated knowing where to send their children for help.  I think that’s a role we can be happy with. Parents want to see their children succeed and often don’t know how to help – by having a night to highlight the support available to their children, we’ve played an important role but not one that has to perpetuate the helicopter syndrome.

I created a wiki to go along with the First Year Experience Liaison work I do. The Mac Library Experience provides important information to first years and those new to Mac in one convenient place. Presently, you have to apply to leave comments but I’m questioning that decision at the moment. Check out what the UL has to say about it too (sorry, a little pat on the back).

Oh, and a personal shout out to my mother and grandmother who are celebrating their birthdays today 🙂

Update: The wiki made the Daily News. Also, I’m on vacation, so posts will be infrequent. More when I get back!

There’s a great article in the new issue of Educause which shares the result of a recent survey of librarian and faculty views of libraries (quick, now go read it). Most of the results are not surprising and it suggests that librarians and faculty still don’t always see eye-to-eye. I found it unsurprising that faculty are using the library less frequently but that’s not to say they’re not using our resources. While faculty see the library becoming less relevant they do not want library funds to be directed elsewhere and still see the library serving a preservation need. Libraries provide essential resources and this role will unlikely change, it is the manner in which we offer these resources and even our services that will change. Unsurprisingly, both faculty and librarians see electronic resources become an increasingly dominant format.

One thing that I tend to disagree with is that the article suggests that librarians generally see their role remaining unchanged. This may be what the survey suggested but many of the librarians I know, myself included, do not feel this is the case. A session I attended at CNI on the future of academic libraries also suggested the need for libraries and librarians to start reconsidering their positions and roles and I think many of his predictions, although they may be hard to take, may not be far off the mark.

I do agree with the idea that libraries need to take a leadership role in a number of areas, including preservation and collections (the future of the e-book and the move to online journals).

Surveys such as this are essential in reminding librarians that faculty may not have the same opinions on important issues. Libraries are a’changin’ and we as librarians will need to change too.