ULS announces ACRL 2009 program

The following is from Cory Tucker. Contact him for more information.

Program Title:

Subject Librarian 2.0: Emerging Trends and Future Challenges for the Liaison Librarian

Short Description

This panel will take a look into the future to identify new challenges and opportunities for subject liaisons in academic libraries. The panel will outline emerging roles, discuss the skills needed to fulfill those roles, and offer suggestions on developing skill sets appropriate to thrive in this new environment. Topics include interdisciplinary research, technology, scholarly communication, instruction and curriculum design, e-science and more. Presenters: Jim Neal, Karen Williams and Kara Whatley.

Description:

Our profession is experiencing rapid change that creates new challenges and opportunities on subject liaisons in academic libraries. Subject liaisons are experiencing a great deal of uncertainty, and some accompanying anxiety, about how their roles are changing. We propose a panel presentation that outlines emerging roles, discusses the skills needed to fulfill those roles, and offers attendees suggestions for how they may develop new skills and lessen their apprehension.

Specific questions to be addressed through the presentation and audience discussion include the following:

1. What new roles have emerged for academic library subject liaisons in the past 2-3 years? What roles will become increasingly important in the next 3-5 years?
2. How can liaisons work across disciplines to meet the needs of interdisciplinary research?
3. How conversant should liaisons be with technology? Should they serve as technology consultants for busy faculty who do not have time to integrate technology into their courses?
4. What is the role of scholarly communication in the work of liaisons? To what extent should liaisons be advocating for and actively creating change in the publishing environment?
5. Will liaisons be expected to play a larger role in instruction and curriculum design?
6. What new roles does e-science present?
7. What skills will liaisons need in the next 3-5 years? What core set of skills should we expect of all liaisons? How can our more senior staff acquire these skills?
8. How can we address the discomfort and occasional resistance that accompanies a change in roles and expectations?

In order to immediately engage the audience and take their “temperature” regarding change, we intend to present them with 5-10 provocative statements about the future of the profession and ask them to respond to those statements using “clicker” technology, which we will borrow from the University of Washington.

We then invite our three panelists to speak for about 10 minutes each about the questions listed above, and to incorporate the audience’s clicker responses as appropriate.