I. What we talk about when we talk about collaboration On April 7, 2011, I published “Collaborating with Faculty Part 1: A Five-Step Program,” a post that described my strategies for developing collaborative relationships with disciplinary faculty. To briefly summarize my “program,” I identified five steps to collaboration as: (1) Be confident, (2) Make the [...]

This is the first in a two-part series on librarian collaboration with faculty. Part 1 presents a five-step program for building collaborative relationships, while Part 2, to come on July 13, 2011, will address specific examples and strategies for collaboration.   Introduction Collaboration has become something of a buzzword of late, which puts us in [...]

A few weeks ago John Dupuis, of Confessions of a Science Librarian fame, posted his Stealth Librarianship Manifesto. He begins: This particular edition of the manifesto applies to academic libraries. The principles of stealth librarianship apply to all branches of the profession, each in particular ways. Other manifestos could exist for, say, public or corporate [...]

Working in an academic environment, the majority of my student interactions are based around a specific assignment. Every semester there is at least one assignment that comes across my reference desk that makes me throw my hands up in exasperation (such as: a scavenger hunt that was written before we moved much of our content [...]

Social networking may have started out as a way for students to keep track of their friends, but it has expanded in just about every direction. These days, you can find at least one related social networking site on just about any general topic, including music, photography, television, books, shopping, and bookmarking. But it isn’t [...]