Jennifer Church-Duran 257

portal: Libraries and the Academy, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2017), pp. 257–271. Copyright © 2017 by Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD 21218.

Distinctive Roles: Engagement, Innovation, and the Liaison ModelJennifer Church-Duran

abstract: Bent on improving the teaching and learning experience, enhancing the productivity of researchers, and increasing the visibility of research outputs, libraries are redistributing staff, reallocating resources, and reorganizing internal structures, all to better partner campus-wide. Nowhere is the impact of this push for service innovation and user engagement greater than on the workload, direction, and even future of liaison librarian programs. This article provides brief historical context as it explores a cross section of libraries that recently redefined or restructured their liaison roles and begins a larger look at the corresponding impact of organizational climate and structure that may influence future success.

Engagement and Innovation

Bent on improving the teaching and learning experience, enhancing the produc-tivity of researchers, and increasing the visibility of research outputs, academic libraries of all sizes have pursued opportunities to redefine and reinvent their

campus contributions. Scott Walter coined this evolving focus the “service turn.”1 Librar-ies navigate this conceptual turn by embracing the idea that the twenty-first century library is valued less for the content of its collec-tions, and more for the scope and quality of the distinctive services in its portfolio. Walter defines “distinctive services” as those arising from three common scenarios: a new approach to an existing library service that serves as a “lighthouse,” that is, an innovation broadly taken up by others; a unique or unusual service closely tied to either a special area of

The twenty-first century library is valued less for the content of its collections, and more for the scope and quality of the distinc-tive services in its portfolio.

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Distinctive Roles: Engagement, Innovation, and the Liaison Model258

strength in the library’s collections or campus academic programs; or a service approach interwoven with unique aspects of the campus’s mission, identity, or history.2

Lorcan Dempsey connects this concept of distinctive service with a corresponding “shift to engagement.” Engagement occurs as libraries cultivate the ability to anticipate changes in users’ environments and expectations, and then build scalable, innovative services that intersect at key points with the research and the learning cycles.3 In pursuit of “service and expertise based” librarianship,4 academic libraries continually return to the same question: What is required to transform from the traditional model to one of innovation, collaboration, and partnership?

Nowhere is the impact of the rise of service innovation and user engagement greater than on the purpose, workload, direction, and even future of liaison librarian programs. This long-established and historically effective model represents a powerful tool for partnering with researchers and students. However, as Karla Hahn noted in a 2009 special edition of Research Library Issues, “While research libraries may agree on the importance of the position, how to reconfigure liaison work has become a topic of broad concern. Identifying emerging roles and

determining how to develop corresponding liaison capabilities are common challenges.”5

There is no definitive, one-size-fits-all formula for creating a dynamic, expansive, and successful liaison program that is guaranteed to thrive in the challenges of an ever-evolving research, scholarship, and learning climate. But as libraries seek to foster in-novative services and pursue engagement, the strategies for those efforts should address critical needs at both the level of the individual liaison and that of the larger organization. At this convergence of bottom-up innovation (the talents, knowledge, and skills of the individual librarians) and top-down strategy (the culture, strategic vision, and structure of the parent institution), the greatest challenges and the greatest opportunities exist.

The Evolution of Liaison Librarianship

Over the years, liaison librarians have gone by many names, including subject specialist, subject librarian, academic liaison, subject liaison, liaison librarian, and subject bibliographer. For the purposes of this article, the terms liaison or liaison librarian are used. But regard-less of the moniker selected, there are shared, common characteristics. These are librar-ians assigned to a specific client base (a school, department, college, research center, or co-curricular unit) in a personalized, relationship-centered system of service delivery. In 1989, Barbara Schloman, Roy Lilly, and Wendy Hu described the critical nature of outreach and communication (precursors to the current engagement ideal) prevalent in liaison work: “Assigning librarians to work with specific departments in a systematic and structured way creates a channel of communication that allows the faculty’s needs to be understood by the library and the library to be interpreted to the faculty.”6

Initially, stewardship of library collections served as the “foot in the door” for es-tablishing and building these desired relationships with faculty and researchers. The

Nowhere is the impact of the rise of service innovation and user engagement greater than on the purpose, workload, direction, and even future of liaison librarian programs.

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Jennifer Church-Duran 259

1992 Guidelines for Liaison Work issued by the Reference and Adult Services Division (RASD) of the American Library Association outlined the early importance of collec-tion development. RASD defined liaison duties primarily as “the relationship, formal and informal, that librarians (in this instance, librarians with multiple responsibilities) develop with the library’s clientele for the specific purpose of seeking input regarding the selection of materials.”7

The same year RASD published this definition, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Office of Management Services released findings from its first survey of liaison responsibilities, SPEC [Systems and Procedures Exchange Center] Kit 189: Liaison Services in ARL Libraries. This study affirmed the primacy of collection development in most programs. However, the responses from 49 ARL institutions also told a richer story, one that predicted ongoing changes to the diversity of the work.8

In her prescient contribution to SPEC Kit 189, Gail Latta identified the coming changes in focus and service that authors such as Walter and Dempsey would explore more thoroughly over two decades later. Latta noted that

as the physical collection becomes less central, the user is becoming the focus of library services. The role librarians are to have in this decentralized information environment could depend largely upon the effectiveness with which liaison librarians are able to monitor, anticipate, and respond to users’ information needs.9

Overall, Latta’s comments encouraged librarians and their institutions to pursue the nontraditional and to view liaisons as participating members of campus instructional programs and research teams.

A Proliferation of Duties

Fifteen years later, ARL published an updated version of the liaison study. Results from the 2007 SPEC Kit 301: Liaison Services showed that this proliferation of duties and part-nerships, predicted in 1992, was underway. While most (but not all) of the participants in 2007 reported a continuing focus on collection development, many also identified reference or research consultation, integration of library instruction into the curriculum, and scholarly communication education as key work priorities as well. Interestingly, only one essential function was universally described by all responding institutions. All participating libraries stated they were “actively seeking ways to increase participation from academic departments” through substantial outreach and communication efforts, regardless of the other services offered.10

This desire to better connect with users marked an early inroad into an engagement-based approach to librarianship. Though existing liaison communication conduits origi-nally supported decision-making about collection development, smart librarians coopted them as ways to bridge gaps in knowledge of faculty needs, increase participation with instructional programs, and position the libraries closer to user workflow.

The Challenges of Change

The changes that occurred between the first and second ARL liaison SPEC Kits included ad hoc initiatives developed in response to ongoing change. As noted, these efforts pulled from the strength of past practice and benefited from the responsiveness of motivated

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Distinctive Roles: Engagement, Innovation, and the Liaison Model260

librarians willing to cultivate greater understanding of academic departments, research-ers, and students. Grassroots endeavors, however, tend to focus on customized service activities intended to meet the needs of the individual (one-off services) rather than on a systematic and coordinated approach meant for a wider audience. As library admin-istrators explore a more centralized method of selecting and rolling out services, it may not always sync with the day-to-day demands facing librarians. In fact, this process of change may present a challenge to library administrators seeking to obtain buy-in and support from the librarians and staff in their institutions.11

Organizational change generates emotional response. In academic libraries, this emotional impact is due, in part, to a sense of loss. Donald Barclay writes directly about

the grief that librarians and staff may experience during times of change and, even more importantly, discusses the need to recognize and acknowledge it. As roles and responsibilities change, “library staff often feel genuine sorrow over the ending of something into which they may have poured years of their professional lives. This sorrow needs to be acknowledged, as does the fact that their work was, and always will be, of genuine value.” Barclay notes that re-ceiving “mixed or clear messages that one’s work is not valued or is no longer

relevant leads to strong, sometimes disabling, emotion” that, if left unresolved, can generate a split between desired future and present reality.12

A New Framework

By 2007, efforts to respond to and to address that potential split between present and future spawned a variety of local projects designed to promote a collective, institutional understanding of the core duties, skills, and best practices that make up this next itera-tion of liaison work. The hope behind these efforts was that working together to create and then operate under a set of shared roles and responsibilities would protect liaisons from uncertainty, while simultaneously moving forward the broader vision of the library.

One of the first, best-known, and most frequently cited of these ventures came from the University of Minnesota Libraries in Minneapolis-St. Paul and its Librarian Position Description Framework. Developed over several years and shared widely by Karen Wil-liams in the 2009 ARL publication “A Framework for Articulating New Library Roles,” the Minnesota approach sought to align trends in higher education and the overall mission of the university with the work of liaisons.13

Crafted as a “living document” that would continue to grow over time, the frame-work was developed by working with librarians to identify core categories of liaison responsibilities. It redefined the “holy trinity” of reference, instruction, and collection development through the lens of user engagement and took into account the growing demands in such areas as scholarly communication, data management, and more. The

Though existing liaison communica-tion conduits originally supported decision-making about collection development, smart librarians coopted them as ways to bridge gaps in knowledge of faculty needs, increase participation with instruc-tional programs, and position the libraries closer to user workflow.

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Jennifer Church-Duran 261

framework served as the underpinning for the creation of all librarian position descrip-tions at the University of Minnesota.14

Minnesota’s project helped spur a national conversation, inspiring a host of other institutions to take a similar leap and draft versions of an engagement-centric framework for their own liaison programs. Research libraries at Duke Uni-versity in Durham, North Caro-lina; The Ohio State University in Columbus; and the University of Washington in Seattle all used the Minnesota framework as a start-ing point in reviewing trends, charting existing work, and generating a collective, organization-wide agreement on what it meant to be a liaison.

The 2011 document “Engaging with Library Users: Sharpening Our Vision as Sub-ject Librarians for the Duke University Libraries” lists objectives fairly representative of intended benefits from a framework process. These include:

● Start conversations throughout the libraries on the role of the subject specialist.● Create a basis for assessing the readiness of staff to take on new responsibilities. ● Provide language that can be incorporated into position descriptions and annual

performance goals.15

For some libraries, the final framework is complex and expansive; for others, it is leaner and more compact. But at a minimum, most contain five common core categories of anticipated work: (1) engagement/outreach, (2) collection development/management, (3) research or reference support, (4) teaching and learning, and (5) scholarly communica-tions (see Table 1). Of these five categories, outreach/engagement universally receives the most prominent position. In the case of the University of Washington Libraries, this also included a variation focused on the internal communication between subject liaisons, to “streamline efforts and provide learning opportunities.”16

Each core category of work is typically followed by corresponding competencies and examples of best practices. Most adopters use the tool for focusing and prioritizing the efforts of liaisons and establishing potential guidelines for individual training and profes-sional development goals. In their “Framework for the Engaged Librarian: Building on Our Strengths,” The Ohio State University Librar-ies (OSUL) note that all categories and related competencies are “core” for every liaison. However, OSUL also acknowledges that “dis-ciplinary distinctions” exist and other unique aspects of individual assignments may also impact scope.17 Librarians are advised to use the best practices and listed competencies as guideposts for setting annual performance and professional development goals with division directors and direct supervisors.

Minnesota’s project helped spur a national conversation, inspiring a host of other institutions to take a similar leap and draft versions of an engagement-centric frame-work for their own liaison programs.

By the time ARL released the results of its third study on liai-sons in 2015, SPEC Kit 349, doz-ens of academic libraries had pursued some variation of the framework concept or a similar method meant to provide clar-ity in liaison job expectations.

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Distinctive Roles: Engagement, Innovation, and the Liaison Model262

Tabl

e 1.

Com

pari

son

of se

lect

ed li

aiso

n fr

amew

ork

mod

els

Uni

vers

ity

of M

inne

sota

D

uke

Uni

vers

ity

U

nive

rsit

y of

Was

hing

ton

T

he O

hio

Stat

e U

nive

rsit

y Li

brar

ies

(200

9)

Libr

arie

s (2

011)

Libr

arie

s

Lib

rari

es (2

011)

Cam

pus e

ngag

emen

t E

ngag

emen

t O

utre

ach,

mar

ketin

g, a

nd m

anag

emen

t En

gage

men

t

m

anag

emen

t

Con

tent

/col

lect

ion

deve

lopm

ent

Col

lect

ion

deve

lopm

ent

Col

lect

ion

deve

lopm

ent a

nd

Col

lect

ion

deve

lopm

ent

and

man

agem

ent

m

anag

emen

t

Refe

renc

e/he

lp se

rvic

es

Rese

arch

serv

ices

Re

fere

nce

serv

ices

Re

sear

ch se

rvic

es

Teac

hing

and

lear

ning

Te

achi

ng a

nd le

arni

ng

Teac

hing

and

lear

ning

Te

achi

ng a

nd le

arni

ng

Scho

larly

com

mun

icat

ions

Sc

hola

rly co

mm

unic

atio

ns

Scho

larly

com

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Sc

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E-sc

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Dig

ital t

ools

C

omm

unic

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ith o

ther

subj

ect l

ibra

rians

Out

reac

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the

loca

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Out

reac

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Duk

e*

Con

trib

ute

to U

W’s

com

mitm

ent t

o

serv

e th

e C

omm

unity

Lead

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ip

Tech

nica

l ser

vice

s*

Exhi

bit a

nd e

vent

pla

nnin

g Ex

hibi

ts*

Fund

-rai

sing

Fu

nd-r

aisi

ng/g

rant

s man

agem

ent*

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Jennifer Church-Duran 263

By the time ARL released the results of its third study on liaisons in 2015, SPEC Kit 349, dozens of academic libraries had pursued some variation of the framework concept or a similar method meant to provide clarity in liaison job expectations. Thirty-six (56 percent) of the ARL libraries responding to the survey had detailed, written policies governing the responsibilities of liaisons in place.18

In comparing the top ARL responses regarding services to representative framework documents, there is reasonable similarity in four out of five areas:

● The ARL response “outreach and communication” resembles the framework category “engagement or outreach, marketing and communication.”

● The ARL response “managing collections in disciplinary areas” matches the framework category “collection development/management.”

● The ARL response “one-on-one research consultations” corresponds to the frame-work category “research or reference services.”

● The ARL response “teaching one-shot information literacy sessions” aligns with the framework category “teaching and learning.”

The ARL survey participants divided the broad concept of scholarly communication (the fifth framework core category) into more discrete subtasks, such as promotion of the institutional repository, consultation on open access, and intellectual property issues.

Besides variations in descriptors and terminology, there are two striking differ-ences between the conceptualizations of liaison work discussed previously and the picture painted from the combined data of the 2015 ARL survey and selected frame-work examples. The first difference relates to the explosion of additional service areas over the past six to eight years. In addition to the fifth core category, other items now on the liaison menu include:

● Assistance with scholarly impact (bibliometrics, especially the statistical analysis of books and articles, and citation management).

● Creating Web-based learning objects. ● E-research support. ● Data visualization support.● Data management support.● New literacies education.● Digital humanities.

The second, and in many ways more profound change, was the dramatic accel-eration in the “shift to engagement.” From Latta’s prediction in 1992, engagement has evolved into a conceptual hub around which all other aspects of the job now radiate, surpassing even the historical centrality of collection development. Ohio State called engagement the “linchpin or guiding principle” for an organized approach to all other professional activity.19

In the past, outreach and com-munication efforts often placed liaisons in a “go-between” role, which relied on a combination of getting the word out about estab-lished library services and gath-ering up user input and feedback.

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Distinctive Roles: Engagement, Innovation, and the Liaison Model264

In the past, outreach and communication efforts often placed liaisons in a “go-between” role, which relied on a combination of getting the word out about established library services and gathering up user input and feedback. These traditional functions remain in the concept of “engagement” but with less concentration on pushing out in-formation on what libraries already do and more on understanding what our users need to do and how we can help facilitate their achievement. It asks liaisons to be “assertive and proactive, seeking out researchers to discuss their activities, understand their work-flows, identify strategic opportunities to partner, and propose collaborative solutions.”20

Re-Skilling and Professional Development

As the role of liaison transforms into one of “engagement facilitator,”21 it is important that librarians are confident in their skill to collaborate with researchers and partner with faculty in relevant ways. Yet it may be unclear what level of individual skill or competency is actually required for each activity. Librarians may lack the necessary knowledge to address the areas represented on growing service menus while simultaneously facing an overall dearth of meaningful development and training opportunities.

One of the benefits arising from defining expectations and competencies is the foundational platform it provides for identifying needed skills. The creation of core competencies opens the door to conducting comparative skills analysis and identifying key knowledge gaps. This, in turn, allows for planning a coordinated professional de-velopment program for training. In support of this re-skilling agenda, several national and international studies placed considerable emphasis on gathering data relevant to training needs or decisions.

The most comprehensive of these studies was commissioned by the Research Librar-ies of the United Kingdom (RLUK) in 2012. Conducted by Mary Auckland, Re-Skilling

for Research explores the changing landscape of scholarship, the evolving needs of researchers, and the skills required of subject and liaison librarians to effectively support these evolving information needs. Auckland identified a set of 32 skills or areas of knowledge that liaison librarians either currently need or will require in varying degrees for the future if they wish to provide the kinds of support that best benefit researchers. These 32 skills are grouped into 10 broad themes or categories, some similar in concept to those reflected in the framework

examples, including subject/discipline, research process, partnerships, information use and management, research data, information literacy, scholarly communication, funders’ mandates (assessment and legal requirements), metadata, and mobile and Web 2.0 tech-nologies. These technologies include such products as Mendeley and virtual research environments, online tools to facilitate sharing and collaboration among researchers, and a range of other communication and social media tools for user-generated content.22

Auckland continued the work by distributing a Web-based survey that received responses from 22 RLUK member libraries (including feedback from 169 librarians and

Librarians may lack the neces-sary knowledge to address the areas represented on growing service menus while simultane-ously facing an overall dearth of meaningful development and training opportunities.

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Jennifer Church-Duran 265

their managers). This instrument served to validate the 32 identified skills by evaluating whether liaison librarians believed these were, in fact, relevant for the future and then determining whether librarians actually felt they possessed those skills. Among other insights, the survey identified high skill gaps in nine key areas, where over 50 percent of the liaison librarian respondents considered the knowledge areas important now, in the future, or both but felt they possessed limited or no related skills (see Table 2).

The data provided by RLUK’s Re-Skilling for Research, and the issues it raises about researchers’ needs and librarian preparedness, offer a foundation for the development of local inventories or instruments to assess skills. It may also serve as a good jumping-off point for critical discussions, not only about training but also about the strategic priori-ties and staffing models that impact it.

Boundless Expectations

The depth and breadth of these potential professional development and re-skilling ef-forts are inextricably tied not only to local definitions of liaison librari-anship but also to issues of librarian workload and available resources. Professional interactions premised on engagement are time-intensive. They expect librarians will work as liaison officers between the library and researchers in their domains, as knowledgeable consultants who understand the unique information cycles of faculty in their disciplines, as entrepreneurs able to identify opportunities and offer innovative solutions, and as trainers to improve users’ skills and understanding.23

Yet it is unrealistic to think that one person could or should possess the diverse range of skills or the extensive time required to “scope, design, build, deliver, and scale”24 all possible services, in all categories, across every assigned constituency, and then proceed to operationalize each into an ongoing service program. However, in the absence of articulated strategic intent and available infrastructure, librarians will likely attempt to do all that, “regardless of goodness of fit.”25

Recently, a task force at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Libraries was charged with re-envisioning their liaison program and noted just such concerns. The task force commented on the possible perception that each liaison should be highly skilled in all potential elements and aspects of new library roles. This expectation was combined with a “one size fits all” approach to services that offered no systemic method for “prioritizing which departments should get more attention and effort.” The potential outcome was a climate in which liaisons felt compelled to personally provide equally high levels of effort to every assigned department, across all categories of service, regardless of the “number of constituents, their reliance on library resources, the need for research instruction, or the department’s overall strategic importance to the University.”26

They expect librarians will work as liaison officers between the library and researchers in their domains, as knowl-edgeable consultants who understand the unique information cycles of faculty in their disciplines, as entrepreneurs able to identify opportunities and offer innovative solutions, and as trainers to improve users’ skills and understanding.

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Distinctive Roles: Engagement, Innovation, and the Liaison Model266

Participants in the ARL Library Liaison Institute held in Ithaca, New York, in June 2015 spoke frankly about this same concern, expressing worry over the creation of “boundless” or “unmanageable” workloads, with “the consequence that no priorities will be accomplished well.”27 John Rodwell and Linden Fairbairn saw similar issues with the breadth and weight of intensifying liaison expectations, stating, “The effectiveness and sustainability of the role has to be addressed . . . Given the personal nature of liaison work and its demands on the individual librarian, expansion and intensification of the work raises questions about its sustainability.”28

These questions of sustainability and scalability are due, in part, to the “solo librar-ian” approach that is still one of the most common models associated with liaison ser-vice delivery. The 2007 ARL SPEC Kit 301 revealed that almost half of the institutional respondents labeled their liaison services as self-administered by individual liaisons, without a central coordinator, administrative body, or other support structure.29 In the 2015 ARL study, that number decreased slightly but still remained high, with 41 percent using a self-administered model.30

There is genuine value to many aspects of the self-administered approach. It offers a level of responsiveness, flexibility, and independence that allows for deeper relation-ships and greater customization of service options. But, in the absence of a correspond-ingly agile infrastructure and dynamic climate, there are also inherent limitations to this method. The Council on Library and Information Resources 2008 publication No Brief Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century observed that, while depart-mental liaisons can be “well integrated” into assigned areas, overall program structure is typically unable to “dynamically respond to emerging trends with intense needs” that

Table 2.Areas with the highest librarian skill gaps identified by Research Libraries of the United Kingdom

● Ability to advise on preserving research outputs ● Knowledge to advise on data management and curation, including ingest, discovery, access,

dissemination, preservation, and portability ● Knowledge to support researchers in complying with the various mandates of funders, including

open access requirements● Knowledge to advise on potential data manipulation tools used in the discipline or subject● Knowledge to advise on data mining ● Knowledge to advocate, and advise on, the use of metadata ● Ability to advise on the preservation of project records, for example, correspondence ● Knowledge of sources of research funding to assist researchers to identify potential funders● Skills to develop metadata schema and advise on discipline/subject standards and practices

for individual research projects

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Jennifer Church-Duran 267

may arise from this embedded relationship. While the liaison can successfully identify opportunities, the broader organizational infrastructure may ultimately lack the agility and resources to “mobilize support” for the iterative prototyping or experimentation that often leads to new services or projects.31

Creating Structure for Innovation

In “Innovation and Strategy: Risk and Choice in Shaping User-Centered Libraries,” Kathryn Deiss notes, “To create climates that encourage strategic innovation is to prepare an organization for the future as well as to meet the present.”32 The ability to mobilize support, to know where and how to tap resources for new collaborative opportu-nities, is critical to the creation of distinc-tive services and to the overall success of repositioning librarians as partners and collaborators. If liaison librarians are truly seen as crucial to innovative services and user engagement, the importance of their role should be reflected in how library resources are deployed and “leveraged to create the most favorable conditions” for achieving these desired collaborative part-nerships. Librarians should be provided “time to be innovative and core to the faculty activities” within an environment that provides time to think, to plan, to collaborate, and not just to cope.33

While a growing number of publications explore librarian engagement with users as a critical part of innovation, far less is available in the professional literature to con-nect that engagement with strategic priorities, or to offer up the means for assessing the merit of ideas and the methods for then managing the process of innovation from idea to implementation.34 A few key articles touch on larger organizational functions related to engagement. In the introduction to the 2009 Research Library Issues special is-sue “Positioning Liaison Librarians for the 21st Century,” Karla Hahn notes, “Liaisons cannot be experts themselves in each new capability . . . Just as researchers are often working in teams to leverage compatible expertise, liaison librarians will need to be team builders among library experts where this advances client research.”35 In the 2013 ARL publication “New Roles for New Times: Transforming Liaison Roles in Research Libraries,” coauthors Karen Williams and Janice Jaguszewski note that “liaison success is, in many ways, dependent on the larger library infrastructure” and that libraries must not only define new roles but also consider “a range of ways to support those roles.” The authors recognize that solutions will vary based on local history, resource availability, and demands. Like Hahn, Williams and Jaguszewski highlight a “growing need for a team based approach that pulls in functional and domain expertise together with the relationship building and consultative role of the subject or liaison librarian.”36

Although the 2015 ARL SPEC Kit does encourage liaisons to continue with bottom-up efforts and to “take a major role” in administering their own work, it also describes

The ability to mobilize support, to know where and how to tap resourc-es for new collaborative opportuni-ties, is critical to the creation of dis-tinctive services and to the overall success of repositioning librarians as partners and collaborators.

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potential structural changes and new models constructed to bring together subject and functional specialists via departmental assignments or project-based teams.37 However, while these seminal articles advance the conversation, the overall focus of published research to date rests more on the responsibilities of individual librarians, perhaps “at the expense of different strategies for organizing and leading liaisons.”38

Unfortunately, there can be a substantial mismatch between the desire to place librarians in “the flow” of researchers, faculty, and students and the customary form of the academic library. Over time, library systems have evolved to deliver services that are standardized, repeatable, and even routine. The net effect can be that the processes, command-and-control hierarchies, and workflows “once put in effect to create consis-tency and predictability, now may inhibit the ability to try new things.”39 This risk can be compounded by the rise of a “silo mentality”—that is, the reluctance of some de-partments, units, or teams to share critical resources, ideas, and information with other departments or groups in the same organization.

Managing innovation requires something different than managing traditional servic-es. Unlike hierarchical bureaucracies, the ability to innovate is most frequently associated

with an open, entrepreneurial mindset in an organization. By nature, innovations are new, untried, untested, and possibly wrong.40 For librarians or staff members to risk that possible failure, there must be a culture where they first feel valued, secure, and respected. In articles span-ning over a decade, Amy Edmondson and her colleagues describe this as a cli-mate of “psychological safety”—that is, a sense of confidence that staff will not be

embarrassed, rejected, or punished for contributing outlier ideas, trying new methods, taking a risk that fails, reporting mistakes, or speaking up. “When leaders demonstrate a willingness to entertain alternative points of view, employees feel emboldened to of-fer new ideas,” thus furthering the spirit of experimentation so critical for innovation.41

Fortunately, a growing number of libraries are experimenting not only with rede-fining or repositioning liaisons but also with the rethinking and redesign of the wider organizational constructs surrounding them. These activities range from work at larger, research-focused libraries such as the University of Arizona in Tucson, the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to smaller, but equally dynamic academic libraries at institutions such as Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Most are at varying stages, with some who have already launched new initiatives, evaluated effectiveness, and revised again, operating on a cycle of continual improvement. These efforts are producing an ever-widening range of possible responses to the same compelling question: “In this age of engagement, how do academic libraries empower liaisons to partner, to innovate, and to develop distinctive services?”

By nature, innovations are new, un-tried, untested, and possibly wrong.For librarians or staff members to risk that possible failure, there must be a culture where they first feel valued, secure, and respected.

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Conclusion

Organizational culture can encourage and spur innovation, or it can discourage and demoralize those efforts. Processes and infrastructure can help effectively manage the creation of innovative services or set up endless roadblocks that result in repeated failures to launch. To truly create agile systems for translating engagement into ideas and, in turn, transforming those ideas into scalable, sustainable, and repli-cable services, libraries must work to connect the ongoing emphasis on engaged librarianship with the need for supportive organizational strategy, structure, and culture.

As libraries continue to share the products, processes, and outcomes from local initiatives and experimentation, a new body of case study literature is emerging. Coupled with insight from key scholarship across business, management, and other disciplines, these studies offer new avenues for a deeper and richer investigation into how libraries may connect user engagement with the necessary infrastructure, creativity, genuine diversity of thought, and overall risk acceptance needed to truly innovate.42

Jennifer Church-Duran is the head of user services for the University Libraries at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; she may be reached by e-mail at: jennifer.church-duran@unlv.edu.

Notes

1. Scott Walter, “‘Distinctive Signifiers of Excellence’: Library Services and the Future of the Academic Library,” College & Research Libraries 72, 1 (2011): 6–8.

2. Scott Walter and Paula Kaufman, “Service Is Sovereign: Strategic Change and the Future of Library Services,” presentation at the Library Connect Seminar, Tokyo, Japan; Singapore; Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia; and Bangkok, Thailand, August 2008, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32962313_Service_is_Sovereign_Strategic_Change_and_the_Future_of_Library_Services.

3. Lorcan Dempsey, “Three Challenges: Engaging, Rightscaling and Innovating,” Lorcan Dempsey’s Weblog, July 5, 2013, http://orweblog.oclc.org/three-challenges-engaging-rightscaling-and-innovating/.

4. Kurt De Belder, “Transformation of the Academic Library,” OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) Research Distinguished Seminar Series, Dublin, Ohio, May 10, 2013, http://www.oclc.org/research/events/2013/05-10.html.

5. Karla Hahn, “Introduction: Positioning Liaison Librarians for the 21st Century,” Research Library Issues: A Bimonthly Report from ARL [Association of Research Libraries], CNI [Coalition for Networked Information], and SPARC [Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition] 265, 1 (2009): 1–2.

To truly create agile systems for trans-lating engagement into ideas and, in turn, transforming those ideas into scalable, sustainable, and replicable services, libraries must work to con-nect the ongoing emphasis on en-gaged librarianship with the need for supportive organizational strategy, structure, and culture.

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Distinctive Roles: Engagement, Innovation, and the Liaison Model270

6. Barbara F. Schloman, Roy S. Lilly, and Wendy Hu, “Targeting Liaison Activities: Use of a Faculty Survey in an Academic Research Library,” RQ 28, 4 (1989): 496–505.

7. American Library Association, Reference and Adult Services Division (RASD), “RASD Guidelines for Liaison Work,” RQ 32, 2 (1992): 198–204.

8. Gail F. Latta, comp., SPEC [Systems and Procedures Exchange Center] Kit 189: Liaison Services in ARL Libraries (Washington, DC: ARL, 1992).

9. Ibid.10. Susan Logue, John Ballestro, Andrea Imre, and Julie Arendt, SPEC Kit 301: Liaison Services

(Washington, DC: ARL, 2007).11. Dana Hendrix, “Emotional Intelligence and the Winds of Change in Academic Libraries,”

presentation at Association of College and Research Libraries Annual Conference, Indianapolis, April 10–13, 2013.

12. Donald Barclay, “‘Climb on Down from That Tree and Help Me Turn Loose of This Here Wildcat’: The Art of Letting Go,” chap. 4 in The Associate University Librarian Handbook: A Resource Guide, ed. Bradford Lee Eden (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012), 39.

13. Karen Williams, “A Framework for Articulating New Library Roles,” Research Library Issues: A Bimonthly Report from ARL, CNI, and SPARC 265 (2009): 3–8.

14. Ibid.15. Linda Daniel, Jean Ferguson, Teddy Gray, Aisha Harvey, Diane Harvey, Danette Pachtner,

and Kristina Troost, “Engaging with Library Users: Sharpening Our Vision as Subject Librarians for the Duke University Libraries,” 2011, https://library.duke.edu/sites/default/files/dul/about/subject-librarian-report-2011.pdf.

16. University of Washington Libraries Intranet, “Subject Librarian Position Description Framework,” Staffweb (2014), http://staffweb.lib.washington.edu/units/ccs/sl-portal/knowing/position-description-framework.

17. The Ohio State University Libraries, “A Framework for the Engaged Librarian: Building on Our Strengths,” 2011, https://carmenwiki.osu.edu/download/attachments/37010332/Engaged+Librarian+Document.pdf.

18. Rebecca K. Miller and Lauren Pressley, SPEC Kit 349: Evolution of Library Liaisons (Washington, DC: ARL, 2015).

19. The Ohio State University Libraries, “A Framework for the Engaged Librarian.”20. Mary Auckland, Re-Skilling for Research: An Investigation into the Role and Skills of Subject and

Liaison Librarians Required to Effectively Support the Evolving Information Needs of Researchers (London: Research Libraries UK, 2012).

21. Miller and Pressley, SPEC Kit 349.22. Auckland, Re-Skilling for Research.23. Ibid.24. Lisa Norberg and Deb Wallace, “Report on External Review: University of Toronto

Libraries Liaison Librarian Program,” 2015, https://librarians.library.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/UTL-Liaison-Program-Review_Final-Report_May_15_w_cover_email2.pdf.

25. Katherine M. Shelfer, “Librarians as Liaisons: A Risk Management Perspective,” Journal of the Library Administration & Management Section 10, 2 (2014): 21–32.

26. Steve M. Cramer, Beth R. Bernhardt, Mike A. Crumpton, Amy L. Harris, and Nancy B. Ryckman, “Great Expectations: New Organizational Models for Overworked Liaisons Based on the UNCG [University of North Carolina at Greensboro] Libraries Liaison Collections Responsibilities Task Force,” Charleston Library Conference, Charleston, SC, November 7–10, 2012.

27. Barbara Rockenbach, Judy Ruttenberg, Kornelia Tancheva, and Rita Vine, “Association of Research Libraries/Columbia University/Cornell University/University of Toronto Pilot Library Liaison Institute,” 2015, http://www.arl.org/storage/documents/publications/library-liaison-institute-final-report-dec2015.pdf.

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28. John Rodwell and Linden Fairbairn, “Dangerous Liaisons? Defining the Faculty Liaison Librarian Service Model, Its Effectiveness and Sustainability,” Library Management 29, 1–2 (2008): 116–24, doi:10.1108/01435120810844694.

29. Logue, Ballestro, Imre, and Arendt, SPEC Kit 301.30 Miller and Pressley, SPEC Kit 349.31. Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), No Brief Candle: Reconceiving

Research Libraries for the 21st Century (Washington, DC: CLIR, 2008).

32. Kathryn J. Deiss, “Innovation and Strategy: Risk and Choice in Shaping User-Centered Libraries,” Library Trends 53, 1 (2004): 17.

33. Rodwell and Fairbairn, “Dangerous Liaisons?”34. Mark Bieraugel, “Managing Library Innovation Using the Lean Startup Method,” Library

Management 36, 4–5 (2015): 351–61, doi:10.1108/LM-10-2014-0131.35. Hahn, “Introduction: Positioning Liaison Librarians for the 21st Century.”36. Janice Jaguszewski and Karen Williams, “New Roles for New Times: Transforming

Liaison Roles in Research Libraries,” 2013, http://www.arl.org/component/content/article/6/2893.

37. Miller and Pressley, SPEC Kit 349.38. Steven Cramer, “Summer Reading on Liaison Trends, Including a Practical Assessment

Program,” This Liaison Life: Adventures of an Embedded Business Librarian, blog, June 11, 2015, https://liaisonlife.wordpress.com/2015/06/11/assessment_readings/.

39. John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison, The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion (New York: Basic Books, 2010).

40. Ibid.41. David A. Garvin, Amy C. Edmondson, and Francesca Gino, “Is Yours a Learning

Organization?” Harvard Business Review 86, 3 (2008): 109.42. Alex Byrne, “Creating a Culture for Innovation and Change at the University of

Technology, Sydney and the State Library of New South Wales,” presentation at the World Library and Information Congress 78th IFLA [International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions] General Conference and Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, August 11–17, 2012.

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