Core Competency I: Use service concepts, principles, and techniques to connect individuals or groups with accurate, relevant, and appropriate information.
Section 1. Interpretation of competency
Libraries are evolving faster than ever and in many cases, the library has reinvented itself to the point that it has been entirely reconceptualized. Public libraries loan out far more than just books. I can find public libraries within a 20 miles radius around me loaning everything from bakeware, to tools, to telescopes. These changes are in response to how people have begun to think about their local library. A 2016 Pew study found that 80% of people aged 16 and up said that public libraries should offer “programs to teach people, including kids and senior citizens, how to use digital tools like computers and smartphones” (Horrigan, 2016).
There is an increase in the services that public libraries offer, This is more often in the form of programming and technology rather than ready reference questions. For many, the public library is the only place they can access the Internet on a reliable computer, they rely on the technical expertise and other skills that librarians possess to help them write letters, fill out forms, and find important information. For other community members bringing their child to story time and craft hour is a valuable economic alternative to expensive preschools. The traditional patron who comes to the library looking for books still exists, but they might be using a Kindle or other device to access the Overdrive collection, or they might still want the latest best seller in hardcover form.
There is a greater reliance on shared resources. Some states will coordinate subscription access to ebook collections such as Overdrive, while others have joined their catalogs to allow for seamless service across an entire network of libraries. One excellent example of this is the Minuteman Library Network in the Metrowest section of suburban Boston. According to their website, “a valid library card from one of the Minuteman libraries. . . will be honored at any of the libraries” (About, 2016).
While the mission of the academic research library isn’t perhaps as open to change as the public there is a greater emphasis on instruction, technologically equipped collaborative spaces, and even programming. As Gilman (2018) noted, “growth of the web has made academic library users more self-sufficient” (loc. 2845). Gilman also wrote about the concept of the learning commons, “based in part on the concept of ‘one-stop shopping,’ this is a full-service learning, research, and project space” (loc 2845). Indeed It is not unusual for an undergraduate library to have a book club, gamified bibliographic instruction, a drop in tutoring center, and jigsaw puzzles on tables, particularly during finals week.
Another major service change is being ushered in by the rise of interlibrary loan and consortial buying. By promoting the use of interlibrary loan, academic libraries can help maintain access while focusing their serial collection budget on core titles. Sjoberg (2017) wrote about “dwindling support” (p. 9) for bundled subscription packages and reviewed some of the services that can take their place. These include pay-per-view models and interlibrary loan (p. 8). Other services aim to promote discovery and access. These range from free browser extensions such as Unpaywall that finds open access versions of papers via the DOI to some of the products from the Digital Science product suite which aim to both integrate with library holdings and leverage open access sources to provide a comprehensive discovery service.
Technology has driven a fair amount of change for the library and the types of services it offers. Shifts in how the public wants to interact with the library, from the types of resources they expect to find to the types of programming that they will want to attend have also transformed the library from static stacks to a more dynamic, multi-faceted space. The evolution of the library in both the public and academic spheres have opened up new roles for librarians, and the speed of the evolution calls for paying close attention to new trends and devising strategies to match those trends with the right types of materials and services.
Section 2. Reference to supporting evidence
Evidence One. Work Experience.
Display board and activities for Library Week.. Three-panel display board with fun book-themed activities for library week. Aimed towards busy law school students it suggested novels to read over the summer as well as some interactive features such as a book fortune teller and mystery books, which were non-academic books from the law school collection with their titles obscured.
As mentioned above the academic library has seen some adoption of fun and interactive activities for students for several years. For library week 2017, I created a display for the UNH Law Library. Other activities for the week included giving out candy, raffling off small items, and playing games such miniature golf in the stacks. Library staff also hung up posters throughout the school and sent school-wide email messages about the importance of libraries in protecting intellectual freedom and human rights.
I feel that this shows competency in the area of service because it is a recognition of the intellectual life that exists in the minds of the students outside of the classroom. It shows that there should be some attempt to engage the students with activities that are not just purely academic and that the information commons should be a place to experience the fullness of human knowledge.
Evidence Two. Academic Assignment.
Economic case study that examined outcomes for community college students who attended developmental education courses and looked at ways to boost graduation rates created for the UNH Course Economic Analysis for Community Development Policy & Practice (DPP 902).
Proactively meeting needs is an important and appropriate goal for the academic library. This requires an ability to scan the environment for opportunities to improve outcomes (and therefore lives) by engaging students and imagining the types of services that can help sustain them in their studies. One demographic that is frequently overlooked are community college students. Many of these students do not fit the mold of a traditional college student that is often envisioned as being someone who went on a direct track from secondary school to higher education. This case study examined graduation rates for community college students who took traditional developmental education courses. These remedial courses are designed to boost college readiness, but in actuality cause many students to leave without earning a degree.
This economics study examined a real-world problem and then reviewed some best practices from various schools to remedy it. I chose this as evidence for proof of competency in the area of service concepts, principles, and techniques because it takes a systematic approach to quantify the problem and then propose solutions from research-based practices being employed at other schools.
Evidence Three. Work Experience.
MAMS Let’s Talk About What OpenBU and OA Can Do For You. Presentation made to graduate students in the Medical Science Program at Boston University.
For librarians that are not engaged directly in reference or other public service work, the opportunities to engage in service-oriented tasks are different. For me, this often takes the form of written tutorials or formal presentations. This presentation was geared toward graduate students who might be interested in publishing their papers in scholarly journals. The purpose if it was to connect the students with services that they might otherwise not know existed. Researchers and other authors often overlook the library as a source of knowledge and expertise in scholarly publishing.
Section 3. Application of competency
I think a fair amount about service in my job and how to employ strategies to engage users and connect them to relevant resources. My job entails a lot of education and outreach. I am charged with helping boost compliance rates for the open access (OA) policy and I frequently have to teach about the broad-based issues surrounding OA such as the different levels of OA and copyright. I also have to make these concepts locally relevant to users and help translate the institutional policy into actionable items in the research information system with the ultimate goal of archiving research outputs.
Later this fall, I will be doing both of these in two separate events. I am working to bring the movie Paywall: The Business of Scholarship, a new documentary on OA and the scholarly publishing industry to Boston University. I have booked an auditorium that has 260 seats and I am hoping to bring an understanding of and appreciation for OA to those outside of the library and not involved in scholarly communications. I also reached out to a BU office outside of the library to get funding to pay for the filmmaker to come for a Q&A after the movie. This will be part of OpenCon Boston 2018, which is also being held at BU where I am a co-organizer with librarians from Boston College.
The other activity I am doing to connect users to relevant information is a presentation that I am making at a workshop for faculty sponsored by the BU Research Office. I will be demonstrating how to use Dimensions.ai, a new platform that can analyze the research landscape to identify collaborators, sources of grant funding, and help researchers find unexplored areas to study.
Technology and a reimagined service concept are changing the library. As novel services and service models emerge around the new paradigm, librarians will find that their skills and knowledge will change fit these new needs.
Section 4. Bibliography in APA format
About the Minuteman Library Network (2016). Retrieved October 6, 2018 from http://www.mln.lib.ma.us/about/about.htm
Gilman, T. Learning and Research Institutions: Academic Libraries in S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information Services Today: An introduction, 2nd Kindle Edition. Latham, MD : Rowman & Littlefield.
Horrigan, J.B. (9 September 2016). Americans’ attitudes toward public libraries. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/09/09/americans-attitudes-toward-public-libraries/
Sjoberg, C. (2017). E-Journals and the big deal: A review of the literature. SLIS Student Research Journal, 6(2). Retrieved October 6, 2018 from http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/slissrj/vol6/iss2/3