ACRL redux

Two ACRL experiences to document:

1. I co-facilitated a roundtable called "PhDs in the Academic Library: The Role of the Scholar-Librarian," with four other current and former CLIR Fellows, Patricia Hswe, Heather Waldroup, Amanda Watson and Christa Williford.

A week or so before the conference, we chose some readings and questions to facilitate the conversation. The readings, accessible through the ACRL website, included:

• Andrew Dillon, “Accelerating Learning and Discovery: Refining the Role of Academic Librarians,” in No Brief Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century. Washington, D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2008, pp. 51-57.
• Thea Lindquist and Todd Gilman, “Academic/Research Librarians with Subject Doctorates: Data Trends 1965-2006,” portal: Libraries and the Academy, 8:1 (2008), pp. 31-52.
• James Neal, “Raised By Wolves: Integrating the New Generation of Feral Professionals into the Academic Library,” Library Journal, February 15, 2006.
• Daphnee Rentfrow, “Groundskeepers, Gatekeepers, and Guides: How to Change Faculty Perceptions of Librarians and Ensure the Future of the Research Library,” in No Brief Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century. Washington, D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2008, pp. 58-65.

(GoogleDocs won't let me upload these, so if anyone wants to read them, let me know and I'll send you the pdf files.) The general questions we focused on were these:

• How does the very specific knowledge gained during Ph.D. research apply in an academic library setting?
• What roles do Ph.D.-holders play in the future of academic librarianship?
• How are Ph.D-holders particularly poised to mentor student research?

The session drew about 14 other participants--the tables were meant to seat about 9, so it was a crowded and convivial hour! The other participants included humanities PhDs who are long-term librarians, recent humanities PhDs like myself, current PhD students in LIS programs, several librarians who have finished Master's level work in a subject area and are trying to decide between continuing in a subject-area PhD program or a LIS PhD program, and one person with an EdD degree. This variety of participants meant that the conversation covered a lot of issues--and resulted in a very interesting discussion. Because there were so many attendees, a representative of ACRL invited the co-discussants to host a Web version of the roundtable in April.

2. I also participated in a workshop on teaching with primary resources. This was a really interesting, informative 3-hour session led by several current and former librarians at UC Irvine. We gained some hands-on experience and learned about different ways to use primary resources in research instruction, different modes of instruction, and different groups of students who might benefit. The organizers have been kind enough to share their hand-outs, powerpoint slides and bibliography.


Gabrielle Dean
Special Collections