Faculty Perceptions of the Library

Educause Review floats across my desk as a matter of course, so I try to take the time to read it as I often find it informative and useful. The most recent issue has an interesting, library relevant article by Roger Schonfeld and Keven Guthrie, “The Changing Information Services Needs of Faculty,” (July/August 2007, p. 8-9). The authors report on a recently JSTOR cosponsored survey of librarians and faculty about “attitudes and perceptions toward an increasingly electronic environment.” There are four points that caught my attention:
· Faculty perceive themselves as becoming decreasingly dependent on the library for their research and teaching needs;
· Despite this perception, the vast majority of faculty members view the “librarian’s role just as important now as in the past, and none believe their institutions should redirect library expenditures.”
· “The consultative role of the librarian in helping faculty in their research and teaching is viewed as an important function by most librarians, but most faculty members do not put the same emphasis on this role of the library.”
· Faculty members and librarians support the transition from print journals to electronic formats, “But neither faculty nor librarians want existing hardcopy collections to be discarded…”

My reflections…we have our work cut out for us.

· When faculty say that they are decreasingly dependent on the library for their research and teaching needs, I think that they have no idea how hard we are working to provide access to all of the electronic resources that they use from their office desk or their home, or how much money we spend buying access to these resources and getting the best possible deal. How can we better communicate this effort?
· Thankfully, despite this misperception, most faculty (and administrators I hope) do not support redirecting library expenditures. How long can we hope or expect this attitude to continue? ECU has been enjoying some very good budget years lately; what happens if this situation changes?
· We librarians are convinced that we can and do provide a valuable consultative role to faculty, if they will only ask. Is that true? Then why this perception? This only fortifies my determination to strengthen and enhance or perhaps totally revamp our library liaison program. This is the best possible strategy for combating this perception, but what else should we do?
· Am I the only person at Joyner who thinks that we have to explore discarding bound paper copies of journals if we have guaranteed access to the information that we have purchased, through agreements with the publishers or closed archive agreements such as LOCKSS?