In response to the visiting and temporary faculty syllabi situation, most librarians would be willing to – at the minimum – do a quick check to let the faculty member know whether their library has those specific articles. Many would also be happy to help provide alternative suggestions and some even have departments to help obtain articles and set up course reserves.

Sadly you are all too right about the lack of clarity for access to online resources. If it’s any consolation, it frustrates us as much as it does you and we do our best to both clarify and work with vendors to simplify what we can.

Our comment policy only requires civility and topicality which you’ve done superbly. I do hope you stop back to see my reply and that you continue sharing alternative perspectives. We need them!

In an example of the first sort, the first the faculty knew of the decision to withdraw certain books due to “lack of use” was finding them on sale in Oxfam. One of the faculty ended up buying back all the books from Oxfam and returning them to the library, pointing out that in many cases the librarian had removed the only copy of a book available and that some of the books were more likely to be used for reference than borrowing (so lack of recent “check-outs” did not constitute evidence that the books were not being used). This occurred at a major university which certainly sees itself as playing in the major research league.

In the second sort of case, it is now really common for electronic journals from various subjects to be bought in bundles. So if department X is buying a bundle which includes journals used by department Y, it is easy for faculty in department Y to be unaware that a journal is no longer available. Even if department X keeps funding the bundle, the publishers sometimes alter the contents of different bundles so an electronic journal can “disappear” without warning.

And it isn’t just adjuncts who may lack time to get to know library resources. The problem also affects visiting and temporary faculty, though perhaps to a lesser extent. If you teach at four different institutions in four years, for example, it can be something of a nightmare to check out all the relevant resources and adapt syllabi to ensure that they don’t require students to read articles which aren’t available in your current library.

It also isn’t always as clear as it could be what’s available only from on-campus and what’s available off-campus and off-campus access methods seem to be different everywhere – and sometimes, they seem to different for different resources at the same institution, too.

Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean to suggest librarians are responsible for these problems (except in the case of the librarian who gave half the subject’s books to Oxfam) but electronic resources have made life much more complicated for everybody, even if they have brought many advantages, too. Many of these complications are the responsibility of the publishers, of course. Crippling costs; bundling; closed-source, accessibility-hostile and proprietary formats; and user-hostile database interfaces seem to be par for the course.

I apologise, but the name and email given will be fake. I don’t feel comfortable posting this in my own name but I also don’t wish to less than honest about that. If the site detects fakes, this comment will disappear into the ether – and perhaps that will not be altogether a bad thing.

http://www.acrl.ala.org/acrlinsider/2008/05/09/acrl-podcast-eradicating-the-rogue-assignment/

One other impossible assignment that is mentioned is using the resource that no longer exists in the library. I ask for copies of assignments from students so I can contact the instructor with “helpful updates” rather than criticism of their assignments.