faculty, research and library

Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey 2015

April 4, 2016 Christine WolffAlisa B. RodRoger C. Schonfeld http://sr.ithaka.org/?p=277685

The scholar-centric nature of the questionnaire ensures that potential changes in research and teaching inform our thinking, not only about academic libraries and scholarly publishing, but about changes in the educational enterprise more broadly.

My note:

By showcasing the diminishing role of physical presence and the increasing research using online methods, this study clearly proves that the 4/5 years debate if the reference librarians must sit on that desk (and answer the most popular question “where is the bathroom”) is futile.

What the study does not show, since it is conducted in its traditional (conservative) form, is that the library is NOT only the traditional library, where faculty and student search for information (being that in its physical appearance or in online access), but the library entails services, very close to the ones offered by IMS.

I see a discrepancy between literature (where libraries compel much more proactive approach regarding services) and the structure of this survey, which focuses on the traditional (conservative) role of the library as a gatekeeper to online resources [only]. Besides entrenching in 90’s practices of information literacy and/or “dressing up” old-fashioned information literacy with the new cloths of “digital literacy”as I witness at my workplace, the faculty must have been surveyed on the skills in metaliteacies, which the library can [must] provide, as per literature.

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