Catching up
Morgan Ritchie-Baum opened up registrations to the ELC 2020 last Thursday afternoon. We began promoting sign-ups, and about 22 hours later, all 250 seats were claimed. Now the pressure is on to finish the planning and make sure this is a worthy event, yikes. (There are still 90 “videos only” slots left.)
Sunset summer thunderstorm cloud
A bit more on library instruction in the pandemic: on Thursday, I led two research workshops, both for traditional, on-campus classes except that I was here at home connecting with the classes via Zoom. Both sessions went fine it seemed, but I really missed the visual and audio feedback that comes naturally in a physical classroom. In the first workshop, I had to rely on the professor for all my student feedback since only he was in Zoom, broadcasting me on the classroom’s big screen.
The second class was with the evening executive MBA capstone class, in which I’m embedded. After a short Slido warm-up, I had the teams use a Google Doc to add their research findings. Since I had access to the team rosters via Canvas, I created breakout rooms for two of the three teams to use for their research teamwork time. The third team moved to an empty classroom during that time.
When I asked the teams to report back (all now back in the official classroom), the class utilized the overhead microphone with all the student machines muted (preventing feedback). But using the class microphone made it hard to figure out who was speaking. There was no yellow box around the speaker’s video. I had to look at each of the teammates for evidence of jaw muscles moving behind their facemasks. That was awkward and a bit frustrating for me. Hard to say “Thank you, Alecia” or “Interesting, could you expand on that idea, Nathaniel?” when you aren’t sure who talked. Of course, what was it like for the masked, safe-distanced students in the classroom that Thursday night? And this after a full day of work before class. Maybe I shouldn’t be complaining.
Today’s topic
I wrote three external reviews for business librarian tenure candidates since summer, and have written six total in the last four years. As many of you know, writing an external review requires reviewing the candidate’s submission portfolio (narrative summary, CV, publications, slide decks, letters of support) and then writing a 2-3 page evaluation based on that library’s criteria for promotion and tenure. After writing my most recent review a few weeks ago, I wondered what insights might coalesce from all that reading and writing…
1.
I’m not all that. It’s a humbling experience reading about the amazing accomplishments of these librarians.
2.
You’ll not all that too. (Haha.)
3.
The official, written expectations for promotion and tenure do indeed vary widely library to library. Most libraries are vague about quantity and quality specifications for scholarship. This vagueness usually results in guesswork and angst in untenured librarians regarding their scholarship output. Compared to my library, most libraries seem to require (or expect) more scholarship to achieve tenure. Yes, some librarians really like to research and write, and so end up publishing frequently. I do wonder how much time some librarians are spending (or think they have to spend) researching and writing at night and on weekends.
4.
Publishing in open access journals seems to be looked upon favorably by the review committees, but so does publishing in prestigious journals, which continue to be journals from commercial publishers it seems.
5.
Many business librarians are publishing on topics outside of business librarianship: library leadership, general collection development, data literacy, digital badges, etc. Given the multi-functional nature of subject liaisoning, this diversity of topics is to be expected and encouraged. Business librarians shouldn’t be shy about publishing outside of JBFL and Ticker.
6.
Serving on BRASS, ACRL, and SLA committees still meets many of the expectations of professional service. Yet many business librarians are creating organizations to meet new or unmet or regional professional needs. I love reading about those entrepreneurial accomplishments and hope the review committees do too.
7.
The candidates work very hard to measure their “librarianship” accomplishments with performance metrics, usage data, and assessment data. The librarians are showing off some impressive data analytics skills. The performance numbers are not always high — if you have struggled to get involved with classes and consultations in your business school, you are not alone — but usually increase over the six years or so of the review period. Some of the candidates had to build library connections within the business school and entrepreneurship programs from scratch. I always enjoy reading about those librarians’ outreach efforts and accomplishments, and how the candidates document and measure these efforts.
8.
Many of the candidates are faced with making hard decisions about collections, particularly business databases. Some business librarians have inherited a set of subscriptions that have not been evaluated or compared to the needs of the curriculum for many years. For example, some libraries have been providing duplicative financial and public company databases while providing little for their fast-growing data analytics or entrepreneurship programs. Candidates often write about their complex efforts to evaluate the collection, examine usage data, map the curriculum, get feedback from faculty, and then explain proposed changes to the faculty. And then here’s budget cutting decisions that had to be made too, ugh.
This Liaison Life 
Leave a Reply