ACRL Seattle

Two really good sessions!

Opening Keynote: Rushworth Kidder

Rush Kidder's opening keynote called upon the audience to build a culture of integrity to address our current ethics recession, purporting that our current economic situation is not so much a financial recession as an ethics recession. As a society, we need to address our ethical fitness. Kidder's research to date suggests that humans share a core set of values:
honesty
fairness
responsibility
respect
compassion

Our ethical dilemmas are driven not so much by identifying right from wrong as by searching for the "higher right" between two right choices. Drivers of dilemmas are:
truth vs loyalty
individual vs community
short term vs long term
justice vs mercy

Kidder argues that this is the time to exhibit moral courage; we have to act or we might as well have no values at all. He defines moral courage as the "willing endurance of significant danger for principles." To emerge from the ethical crisis we must move from a people of integrity to a culture of ethics. (Relating this to the current economic crisis he notes that you can't separate capitalism from the moral basis of society.) Ethics is defined as obedience to the unenforceable. When ethics drains out of a culture, law takes over and you have a situation of self-regulation v. imposed regulation. And that's where he left us!

Questions:

Impact of digital technology - Kidder: need moral futurists; don't get blindsided by technology. Example: the human genome project devoted 5% of funding to ethical considerations so when technology was ready a core of people had already thought about and could articulate ethical implications and guidelines

Lobbying in DC - Kidder: public outrage; Crisis invites introspection
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Panel: Subject Librarian 2.0: Emerging Trends and Future Challenges for the Liaison Librarian
Jim Neal, VP for Information Services and University Librarian, Columbia Univ
Karen Wiliams, University of Minnesota
Kara Whatley, Coles Science Center, NYU

This panel presented three perspectives: an academic library administrator, an AUL for academic services and a life sciences liaison. All agreed that the expectations of users are changing and required skill sets of liaisons must evolve.

Jim Neal talked about core responsibilities in support of teaching, learning and research and also the poverty of abuncance, i.e. the inability of researchers to use the array of resources available to them. His list of expectations of users includes:
social networking
collective intelligence
permanent beta
authorship revolution
software as a service/not a product
AI/expert systems
Library as participation/not information
Neal believes the next "radical collaboration" will be liaisons working across institutions to deliver services to their constituents.

Williams described the Univ of Minnesota's work on a position description framework for liaisons. Their process is 2 1/2 years old and already under revision as e-science is "huge" and not reflected in the existing new framework:
scholarly communication
teaching and learning
digital tools
outreach
collection development and management
fund raising/identifying and cultivating donors
reference
Her advise on engaging in a review process:
respect the past
involve staff
recognize there are multiple right ways
celebrate success and failures

Whatley referenced new twists on old skills, beginning with the holy trinity of reference, collection development and instruction. Liasion roles are expanding to include embedded librarianship, technologist, grant writing, knowledge creation and communication/politician. She see liaisons as:
mediators - librarians as middleware
organizers of information - including tagging and metadata
preservationists - including data and new media
event planners/programmers
Acknowledging that something has to give, she suggested multi-desk reference service and firm ordering as we know it. She suggested that liaisons form stronger partnerships with IT, share common needs across libraries, and go mobile for greater efficiency.

Lots of food for thought!