Indispensable Partner: Bing an Embedded
Librarian in a Research Methodology
Class for Graduate Students
Jianye He (UC Berkeley)
April 23, 2014
LAUC 2014 Spring Assembly
Outline
• “Embedded librarian” — “familiar
stranger”?
• To be or not to be? —Why it matters to
outreach to faculty as teaching partner?
• Opportunities and challenges for
“embedded librarian”—views from
personal experience
“Embedded librarianship/librarian
• The Iraq war brought us the concept of “embedded journalists.”
Now we have the concept of “embedded librarians.” An
embedded journalist is supposed to have better access to a story;
an embedded librarian provides better access to the librarian and
to the library’s resources. (Rebecca Hedreen, 4/29/2005
http://frequanq.blogspot.com/2005/04/embedded-librarians.html)
•
“Embedding librarians brings the learning process in closer
proximity to the scholarship on which the disciplines are based
and to those that service it—librarians.” (Dewey, 2004)
“Embedded librarianship/librarian
• “(Embedded librarianship) emphasizes the importance of
forming a strong working relationship between the librarian
and a group or team of people who need the librarian’s
information expertise.”(David Shumaker, 2012)
• “It is used to describe the work of an academic librarian who
participates in an academic course on an ongoing basis,
teaching information literacy skills.”(Models of Embedded
Librarianship Final Report, SLA, 2007)
Characteristics of the “embedded librarian”
(David, 2012):
• Ongoing working relationships
• Knowledge of, and commitment to, information
user-group goals and objectives
• Highly customized and value-added contributions
to the group
Outreach to faculty as teaching partner:
finding the right match
Bonding by ongoing teaching — no “blind
dates”!
• Consistent excellent reference service
• Being a researcher yourself
• Don’t mind starting from teaching
individuals or small sessions
• Don’t be shy to let faculty know your
specialty /expertise and your willingness to teach
Why does the faculty-librarian teaching model
work better for a graduate student research
methodology class?
(1) Research methodology is critical to graduate
students’ overall academic success;
(2) New graduate students’ information literacy
level or skills could be different;
(3) Faculty are overwhelmed by their own research
and in-depth subject-focused teaching;
(4) Subject librarians have the right knowledge
background and stay up-to-date on the fast expanding
new research resources.
Embedding in the classroom
Genre and Method in
Traditional Chinese Texts
EA242A/HS280F (Fall 2009)
Wednesday 12:30-2:00
341 Starr Library
Genre and Method in
Traditional Chinese Texts
EA242/HS280 (Spring 2014)
Thursday, 2-5
341 Starr Library
Where is the librarian needed?
Course Description:
This course offers graduate students
focusing on the literature and history of
traditional China a systematic, hands-on
introduction to the print and electronic
resources necessary for conducting
advanced research in these fields. In
addition to being introduced to the history of
Chinese bibliography and “sinology,”
students will learn to use the vast array of
ever expanding resources, and to consider
what research questions these resources
facilitate, and what sorts of questions remain
relatively unexplored.
Weekly lists posted on bSpace website (12 lists):
Sample list:
Where is the embedded librarian?
“…four hours later in the library…little progress had been made to be able to
accurately look up the required texts. Thus, I decided to ask Librarian He
Jianye, who gave an excellent overview of possible text resources for looking
up genres. Under her tutelage, I learned how to scan the preface of books for
the important genre classification words, then scan the book for the correct
heading.”--Alex
“Qiu Zhao’ao’s Dushi xiangzhu, which was introduced to me by Jianye, was
very helpful to understand how the intertextuality is made in this poem.” –
Tayhun
“Jianye suggested me to go to the gazetteer of Hangzhou. I was reluctant as it
hurt my pride in my hometown, but I compromised with Hangzhou as it was
indeed close enough to Jinhua. Hangzhou fu zhi turns out to be excessively
rich and illuminating. Festivals are what I know, but details are more than
what I can think of.”—Liu Yue
Opportunities and challenges to be
embedded librarian
New role for subject/reference librarians
for the changing time
•
•
•
•
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Responsive — Anticipatory
Individual customer — Team of collaborators
Standardized — Customized
Single transactions — Ongoing projects
Service —- Partnership
(Differences between “traditional librarian” and “embedded
librarian”, David, 2012)
Promoting the library, librarians,
collections and services
Increasing usage of the library and
providing better access to collections
Developing high quality research
collection in a dynamic way
However…
● Workload and pressure on embedded librarian
could be overwhelming
● Teaming with multiple collaborators could be
challenging, especially when there are
disagreements.
● Keeping abreast of expanding resources could
be daunting.
● It is still the librarian’s voluntary choice, where
is library’s rewarding policy?
T
H
A
N
K
S
!