The College & University (C&U) Section’s workshop entitled, “Librarian-Faculty Collaboration – (Practically) or Barely Speaking” was held on June 19, 2008 at Richland County Library in Columbia, SC. The workshop drew 47 participants from various regions across South Carolina, in addition to expert speakers on collaboration from Georgia.
The workshop opened with Christie Eller, the C&U Chairperson, giving participants a hearty welcome and outlining activities for the day. Ruth Hodges, the C&U Secretary, introduced the first speaker Dr. William Hine, whose wit and humor delighted the audience when talking about “why I love librarians.” He talked about the different attitudes of faculty with whom librarians sometimes encounter and concluded that it would take a psychologist to understand the collaborative relationship between the two. A morning break followed Hine’s presentation. Afterwards Eller introduced Lyn Thaxton and Tammy Sugarman who talked about “Making it Happen: Librarian-Faculty Collaboration to Improve Student Learning.” Participants were intrigued with the characteristics of librarians and faculty outlined by Thaxton and Sugarman. They emphasized numerous commonalities between librarians and faculty and concluded in order to enhance relationships between the two would require librarians to better market their skills and services to faculty. The morning sessions ended with a networking luncheon.
Curtis Rogers, the SCLA President, opened the afternoon session with greetings and announcements, which was followed by Beki Gettys, the C&U Vice-President, introducing the afternoon panel. The panel consisted of three librarians discussing librarian-faculty collaboration from their personal experiences.
The first panelist, Candice Moorer spoke on “Innovative Faculty-Librarian Collaboration.” Her work with medical faculty was very diverse, collaborating in grantwriting, patient rounds, mentoring, teaching, community outreach and the like. Moorer concluded that such collaborations involved persistence, marketing, being knowledgeable about campus happenings, and being up-to-date about technology.
The second panelist, Andrew Kearns spoke on “Collaborating on a First‐Year Information Literacy Program at USC Upstate.” Common concerns about critical thinking and writing abilities of freshmen students resulted in the library, University 101 coordinators, and the English Department partnering to implement an information literacy program modeled after the ACRL Information Literacy Standards. Kearns concludes that common interests, opportunity, creativity, communication, and marketing were pivotal to this collaboration.
The third panelist, Camille McCutcheon spoke on “Collaborating with Faculty to Build and Weed Collections.” She spoke on how she successfully recruited and maintained interests of faculty from her liaison area, psychology, to help in a library weeding project. She concluded that key to successful collaboration with faculty required respect, persistence, teamwork, trust, knowledge, interest in the faculty’s expertise among other qualities. Following McCutcheon’s presentation, Gerri Corson, the C&U Program Coordinator, gave the final wrap-up by thanking the C&U Chair and other Committee members for working to help make the workshop a success!