Life Cycle of Faculty-Librarian Relationships: Building, Maintaining, and Restoring Trust

Abstract

Faculty- Library relationships are valuable for both groups, however, building, maintaining and restoring these ties can be difficult. In this poster, we propose a life-cycle approach to each of these critical components of a liaison program. The life-cycle begins building relationships by transitioning new faculty to the institution, creating faculty development opportunities, finding key faculty allies, and advertising library services as a component of effective learning. Maintenance is the day-to-day operations of the library, which include cultivating off-campus relationships, involving faculty in decision-making, participating like faculty by attending key meetings and working in committees, and implementing an embedded librarian system. All of this work becomes important when crises occur, libraries must manage their message, fix the problems, refine their services, and prove there’s been change. By building and maintaining bonds when things are going well, libraries are able to approach crises more effectively and are able to mitigate the fallout.