What to say in a faculty department meeting? (Liaison Year One Redux)

Happenings

Today I brought my UNCG office chair back to the library, after using it at home since March 2020. A symbol of hope for the new school year.

The next post here will be a second guest post by the amazing Elizabeth Price! Its title: “Down the WDRS Rabbit Hole”.

Today’s topic

Last week I blogged about pretending to be a new liaison again. One strategy I mentioned was trying to visit business school department meetings this fall. I haven’t gone to meetings very often in favor of one-on-one communication.

This morning was my first: Management invited me to their pre-semester retreat as their first topic. This Friday, at 8:45am (yikes), I talk to the Marketing/Entrepreneurship/Hospitality department at their retreat. So yesterday, I had to hurry up and finalize what I wanted to say to the faculty. Both retreats this week are via Zoom; I had hoped to meet with them face to face in one of the big rooms in the b-school.

I only asked each department for 10 minutes (although the Management department head gave me 30), so brevity on my part was vital. It’s not unlike an entrepreneurship pitch, right? Get in, share information and ideas that will grab their attention, invite questions, and leave with a thank you and invitations for private follow-ups.

What would you say if you had only 10 minutes?

Well, you can’t say too much, can you. After some thought, I decided:

• To be faculty-centered;
• To grab their attention;
• To share some good news;
• But also update or educate them on budget realities;
• And remind them of my liaison public service roles.

I also decided not to ask to share slides. Instead, for the Management Zoom meeting, I shared a link to a Google Doc with my key points and then summarized them verbally. I’m not going to share that doc here since I included some budget and contract details, but here is a summary of what happened and what I said.

Introductions

I joined the Zoom at the start of the retreat, 15 minutes before my talk, in order to hear the faculty introduce themselves. A handful had been hired in the pandemic and had not seen the other faculty face to face. Like many of my librarian colleagues, all the profs were excited to meet up this fall. Several had new babies to announce. (We didn’t get to see any, though. Nor any pets.)

After the department head introduced me, I added some details:

• my main role is supporting their research and teaching needs;
• reminder that the UNCG librarians are faculty too and therefore know what being tenure-track is like;
• that I look forward to meeting the new faculty face to face sometime this year.

I also reminded them of my subject guide for their department and that we had two new products via special one-time funds from last spring, one of which (Sage Business Cases) being an open education investment.

Topic one: the big deals

Despite a second year of budget cuts due to pandemic-related enrollment declines, the library will be able to renew the 3-year deals for our “big deal” ejournal packages, which I named (the top six). I told the faculty that most of the packages will go up 2%, but that the most expensive one, Elsevier, is actually dropping in total cost a little. I also shared what we will pay for Elsevier in 2021-22, our biggest bill. I concluded with the message that subscriptions to ejournals and well as business databases remain unsustainable in the long run, since our budgets are not increasing. 

So that was my faculty-centered lead-off topic, since access to the journal literature is always a top priority of theirs.

I also mentioned that we are trying out a Wiley transformative deal. More on this below.

Topic two: NC DOCKS

It had been a few years since I promoted the UNCG institutional repository, NC DOCKS. My message:

Why have your articles posted there? Open-access articles get read and cited more often than articles only available behind expensive library subscription pay-walls. Also, Google Scholar prioritizes IRs in its algorithms. To get your articles posted in NC DOCKS, just send me your CV. You could also provide a picture and short biography. 

As an example, I shared the link to the NC DOCKS page of one of the Management professors.

When my time with the Management professors ended and I left Zoom, I already had 4 emails with CVs attached. Two more CVs came in later. 

Topic three: liaison services

I told the faculty I plan on being on campus most days in the fall semester, and then reminded them of my public service focus as a liaison:

• In 2019-2020, I provided research workshops for 80 classes and sections, in-person and online. Let me know if I can support your classes too.
• I’ve been averaging 430 research questions a year from students, faculty, and staff (via email, in-person, and Zoom). Please feel free to send your students my way.
• I also make screencast videos for specific class projects on request.
• Finally, I also make research guides for any class that needs one.

Final discussion

The above took about 10 minutes as planned. We had time for questions and discussion. We talked more about read+publish deals, including the new UNC system Wiley deal and some mini-grants provided by the Provost and the Libraries. The Management faculty liaison for monographic firm-ordering reminded everyone that we do have a small budget for that format. I mentioned that we mainly buy ebooks with our book funds and also get them through packages and DDA. Another prof asked about streaming audio books. I agreed that the public libraries (and NC LIVE) are their best bets for that format.

At 10:45, right on time (very important), I gave a final thank you for having me at their retreat, and then with agreement from the department head, signed out.

If anything interesting happens with the other five department meetings this fall, or I decide to change my speaking notes, I will post an update when I next write about some other “liaison year-one” work.