This article was downloaded by: [North Dakota State University]On: 01 November 2014, At: 10:59Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

The Reference LibrarianPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wref20

The Roles of Engagement at The OhioState University Libraries: Thoughts froman Early AdopterJosé O. Díaza

a Thompson Library, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OHPublished online: 01 Jul 2014.

To cite this article: José O. Díaz (2014) The Roles of Engagement at The Ohio State UniversityLibraries: Thoughts from an Early Adopter, The Reference Librarian, 55:3, 224-233, DOI:10.1080/02763877.2014.910741

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02763877.2014.910741

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

The Reference Librarian, 55:224–233, 2014Published with license by Taylor & FrancisISSN: 0276-3877 print/1541-1117 onlineDOI: 10.1080/02763877.2014.910741

The Roles of Engagement at The Ohio StateUniversity Libraries: Thoughts from

an Early Adopter

JOSÉ O. DÍAZThompson Library, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

Changes in information and technology continue to test howlibrarians interact with and support patrons. Now, engaged librari-ans have the opportunity to immerse themselves in their user’s work-flows and become partners in the research enterprise. Engagementrepresents a model of librarianship in which librarians are chal-lenged to move from the traditional collection-centered model toan engaged-focused one. It requires new roles and tasks, as wellas a deeper understanding of the academic setting. This article dis-cusses working in a large research institution and articulates theengagement model.

KEYWORDS academic libraries, engaged librarians, faculty-librarian collaboration, faculty partnerships, leadership competen-cies, communication

INTRODUCTION

In 2000, the late Joseph J. Branin wrote presciently about a rapidly chang-ing future for librarians. Branin argued that the new frontiers of knowledgemanagement will jettison the recent past and that more and more librarianswill face the twin challenges of print and digital formats. They will midwifescholarly publications, connect the local and the global, deliver resourcesand services online, store and offer access to electronic collections, pre-serve and protect print legacy collections, and offer a principled defense of

© José O. Díaz

Address correspondence to José O. Díaz, Thompson Library, The Ohio State University,321B, 1858 Neil Avenue Mall, Columbus, OH 43210. E-mail: Diaz.6@osu.edu

224

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:59

01

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Roles of Engagement 225

open access scholarship (Branin, Groen, & Thorin, 2000). Without a doubt,Branin’s vision became a reality with startling accuracy. Today, academiclibrarians struggle to cope with the frightful rapidity of these changes andtheir unintended consequences.

This article does not challenge the vision of Branin et al. (2000). Instead,it centers on one question they did not fully explore. Although Branin et al.(2000) did ponder the suitability of the traditional library model in the digitalage, they did not offer an in-depth reflection on the relevancy of the tradi-tional librarian model in the face of the 21st century realities they articulated.They left it to us to surmise how librarians could position themselves to sur-vive, thrive, and find meaning in a rapidly changing profession. The currentarticle offers one possible answer: engagement.

Engagement is a rugged terrain. To climb to its summit, librarians mustcontinue to honor the profession’s history of service while abandoningold routines, forging new relations, tackling fresh challenges, and under-standing that an academic library and its institution are intricately boundtogether. To move from the traditional collections-centered model to anengagement-focused one, librarians must adopt change, and with it, developnew professional personalities. In addition, they must embrace an ample andflexible vision of librarianship built on an environment characterized by cor-porate models, breathless technological change, and a system-analysis viewof the ever-changing library enterprise.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The literature on library engagement remains sparse. Its foundational docu-ment is the groundbreaking work done by Karen Williams at the Universityof Minnesota. Her article “Framework for Articulating New Library Roles” hasinformed the efforts not only of the University of Minnesota, but also of DukeUniversity, the University of British Columbia, The Ohio State University(OSU), and other institutions seeking to transition from a collection-centeredto an engagement-centered model (Williams, 2009). The shift toward anengaged model signals endurance and transformation. It points not to anensuing calamity but rather to a recurrent (and I argue healthy) iden-tity crisis. As Hahn (2009) argued, it is an attempt “to reconfigure liaisonwork” and “to identify emerging roles and determine how to develop cor-responding capabilities” (p. 2). It is also recognition that, in an era ofinformation abundance and disintermediation, the venerable trinity of ref-erence, liaison/instruction, and collections must now be complemented byvigorous relationship building (Parsons, 2010).

The engaged model is also the profession’s collective acknowledgementthat the library environment in which users operate has irrevocably changed;and if their environment has changed, so has ours. It is an acceptance

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:59

01

Nov

embe

r 20

14

226 J. O. Díaz

that, as Dempsey (2008) elegantly argued, librarians must be “in the flow”(p. 111). It is our ability to connect and create what Pink (2006) referredto as “relationships between relationships” that will determine the successof the engaged librarian (p. 137). Success, engaged librarians have alreadydiscovered, will no longer be measured by particular degrees, Associationof Research Libraries (ARL) statistics, reference transactions, or deference toprocedure. Expertise, impact, value, and farsightedness will now lead theway.

THE SETTING

OSU is a world-class public research university and the leading compre-hensive teaching and research institution in the state of Ohio. With morethan 63,000 students, the Wexner Medical Center, 14 colleges, 80 centers,and 175 majors, the university offers its students uncommon breadth anddepth of opportunity in liberal arts, sciences, and professional programs.My constituency, the Spanish and Portuguese Department and the Title VI-supported Center for Latin American Studies, is also characterized by breadthand depth.

The Center for Latin American Studies is home to 90 faculty mem-bers from 6 colleges and 26 departments. It is a leading promoter ofthe university’s efforts to internationalize the curriculum, foster multidisci-plinary initiatives, and increase diversity of perspectives. The Center for LatinAmerican Studies works to increase the supply of Latin American specialistsat all levels of the educational system for service in areas of national need, asidentified by the U.S. Department of Education, in government, education,business, and nonprofit sectors. An integral part of its mission is to advanceand disseminate knowledge about Latin America among K-12 and postsec-ondary educators, the business community, the media, and the communityat large.

There is no implicit contradiction in the terms breadth and depth. In fact,these epitomize our institution and its library system. Our breadth allowsus to operate across disciplinary boundaries in a coherent and productiveway. Our depth reflects mastery of a body of knowledge and its constantlyemerging scholarship. It is balance between breadth and depth that thelibrary’s engaged librarian framework seeks to fine tune. The OSU library’sengaged librarian framework highlights two objectives: to bracket profes-sional responsibilities and to create expectations for all subject librarians.It lists core competencies and best practices. It is also deeply embedded inthe library’s strategic plan.

The roles of engagement are many. Some are familiar but need to beredefined, whereas others are emergent. The roles are those of teacher, con-sultant, storyteller, builder, partner, and visionary. Together, they subsumenearly all the responsibilities found in OSU’s engaged librarian framework.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:59

01

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Roles of Engagement 227

This article will interpret these roles, explain their practicality, and show howto use them in effective ways.

TEACHER

I approached the engaged librarian model knowing that reference remainsthe most traditional function librarians perform. In addition, librarians con-tinue to visit academic departments and lecture halls, announcing improve-ments to new databases and teaching bibliographic software. However,instead of following the exhausted path of one-shot and invitation-only lec-tures, I queried teaching faculty about what other support the library couldprovide to make their courses more agile and more responsive to a younger,and increasingly wired, audience. How could the instructor and the librariantogether get into the students’ educational and informational flow?

As a practitioner of engagement, I was not looking for clear-cut answers.I was on a quest for long-term commitments and partnerships. True engage-ment does not occur until the librarian has entered the faculty’s workflow.In creating partnerships with instructors, I found myself able to influence thestudents’ approach in myriad ways. For example, I participated in design-ing learning outcomes. With the aid of the libraries’ Teaching and LearningDepartment, I began to learn about what was required to show students metthese objectives, what activities I could suggest that would exhibit studentmastery, and how to implement the intricacies of backward course design.I thought through course objectives and before I knew it, I was advocatingfor the scaffolding approach to the writing process in which instructors helpstudents transition from assisted tasks to independent performances by offer-ing guidance until the process is learned and then progressively removingsupport to reallocate the responsibility for completing the task to the student(Bliss & Askew, 1996).

Technology became an occasional ally. The university, in its quest toglobalize its educational offerings, recently offered a cross-cultural socialwork course. The class included students from the Columbus campus andthose from a University in Central America. Video conference technologymade it possible for me to lecture to students at home and abroad ondatabases and research in general. In another instance, I prepared studentsfor an overseas trip to Latin America and stayed informed of their progressvia social networks. The time-honored tradition of a librarian’s presenceremained. The librarian was not buried in the footnotes or made to havea seasonal guest appearance in a course—the engagement by the librarianwas visible to both instructor and learner. I participated in, not just sup-ported, the learning experience. Under engagement, there is no place tohide: the librarian moved from afterthought to forethought.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:59

01

Nov

embe

r 20

14

228 J. O. Díaz

CONSULTANT

Relationship building is the foundation of the consultant role. Good rela-tionships and engagement beget questions about online journals, rightsmanagements, and sustainability, among other topics. The constituency Iserve is fairly typical for a large research institution. There are a large num-ber of faculty members with diverse geographic interests who constitute ahealthy blend of veterans and new tenure-track professors. Not surprisingly,they are highly productive. Lately, a series of unforeseen circumstances cou-pled with the promise of open access distribution and a librarian in the rightplace transformed an engaged librarian into a consultant. This is the storyof two journals: one newly born and one recently deceased and soon-to-beresurrected under a new identity.

The Latin Americanists in the department conceived of a cultural stud-ies journal centered on their region. After a series of phone calls anda few meetings the department, in partnership and consultation with thelibrary’s Digital Content Services and its Copyright Resources Center, a planwas made that would yield a new journal. The new publication woulduse open access software and, once published, would be archived inthe library’s digital repository—the Knowledge Bank. With the assistanceof the Library’s Copyright Resources Center, the Spanish and PortugueseDepartment negotiated the proper legal language and secured the nec-essary licensing agreements and copyright releases. The maiden issue ofAlter/Nativas is now available.

However, the second journal, España Contemporánea (Revista deLiteratura y Cultura), presented a different set of challenges. For 25 years,the department published a successful journal focused on Spain’s literatureand culture. Due to the untimely death of its publisher and changes in thefield, the journal’s fate became problematic. Buoyed by the success of thefirst joint publishing venture, the engaged librarian outlined the advantagesof an online open access model. However, the issues were different this time.Closing publication of the old journal and publishing a new one was the easypart. What to do with 25 years of content stored between two rapidly deterio-rating covers and no copyright releases to be found was another matter. Thedecision to digitize and store was simple. With guidance from the library’scopyright professionals, the Spanish and Portuguese Department worked outoptions ranging from the optimal strategy (to contact the authors/their estatesto get permission to digitize their works) to less optimal but still within thebounds of fair use (to alert authors that the digitization is taking place andto include an opt out option). From this moment forward, the departmentand its journal will secure agreements with authors prior to publication.Negotiations regarding the launching of Iberia(s) are still underway.

The engaged librarian facilitated the behind the scenes contacts thatoffered potential answers to the rights management challenges. This engaged

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:59

01

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Roles of Engagement 229

librarian was not a publisher, copyright attorney, or even particularlywell-versed on open access software. Instead, the librarian could build rela-tionships and knew where to find needed expertise. What it took waswhat librarians are known for—connecting people with the right sourcesof information.

STORYTELLER

The first academic story I heard came from an unlikely source and in anunlikely place. The source was a retired chemistry professor; the place wasa reference desk. The professor, a genial storyteller, happily waxed aboutthe role his PhD advisor played in the development of the hydrogen bomb.He regaled me with stories of how the scientists in the project would gettogether to play cards and drink after tense days of experimentation andfailure. For me, the story worked. It helped me connect the impenetrableworld of covalent bonds and orbitals with real people doing real things fora larger purpose. It humanized a rather frightful enterprise and left me witha sense that the department and its stern-looking members was more thanlaboratories, white coats, and goggles.

Storytelling is nothing new. Today, stories continue to be told, but theycan be captured in digital media to be preserved for the future and sharedwith others (Fields & Díaz, 2008). Stories play an important role in libraryengagement. Stories brand your message, connect you with people, givemeaning to information, motivate your audience, and market your product.They tell your constituency who you are in an interesting, useful, and mem-orable way. Storytelling is also an opportunity. Others have stories to telltoo. Listening to stories helps you understand where needs exist and whereopportunities might arise. It provides a chance to measure common interests,gauge areas of disagreement, build community, and explore partnerships.

Recently, a colleague and I gave a talk to OSU’s Iberian Studies group.The presentation centered on resources common to the fields of Iberianand Jewish Studies. Its content was the typical what, where, and how ofinformation-seeking skills. However, one item captured people’s attention.My colleague devoted a good portion of his talk to the genesis of the JewishStudies collection. His story brought his library’s collection alive and madeinformation meaningful. He took his audience to the 1960s when the librarypurchased the contents of an old Jewish bookstore in Amsterdam wherea large Jewish community flourished after its expulsion from the IberianPeninsula in 1492. He gave a brief chronology of his predecessors, of thecollections’ growth and development, and of his expectations for a moredigital future for those engaged in Sephardic Studies. His story containedplot, characters, and setting. More importantly, it shed light on the past,humanized the present, and informed the future.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:59

01

Nov

embe

r 20

14

230 J. O. Díaz

BUILDER

Few roles demand more engagement than that of builder. To engage is tobuild and to take risks. To do it in an environment characterized by traditionand continuity is counterintuitive. These are difficult, yet exciting times inthe library business. The once predictable tasks librarians performed havegiven way to new responsibilities that demand new knowledge and renewedcommitment to the profession. For the engaged librarian, risk-taking shouldbe neither a reckless nor a solitary endeavor. Because the librarian knowshis institution’s story and its new directions, he can commit, in partnershipwith his constituency, to build a different future cemented by new initiatives,programs, and resources his library or university support. The trick is to movein the right direction.

At OSU, the right direction is indicated by the institution’s discoverythemes, which were developed to leverage its unique strengths in the direc-tion of social, environmental, and technological challenges affecting today’sglobal community. The themes are health and wellness, food production andsecurity, and energy and environment. The intent is to use OSU’s intellec-tual and material prowess to address these global challenges. Seven guidingprinciples undergird these themes and keep them moving forward in asuccessful, responsible, and collaborative manner.

For an engaged librarian, this means tackling these challenges with lead-ership and expertise. It requires a grasp of the interdisciplinary nature of thebig picture and a familiarity with the role information plays as a commondenominator. The engaged librarian, as part of a discovery theme team, willhave a voice in determining areas of global opportunities. His or her posi-tion will afford librarians the chance to leverage the library’s resources andtalents in the most profitable way. The librarian should be able to see short-comings and opportunities and to position the library to cooperate and tobenefit from the university’s human and materials investments.

One of OSU’s aforementioned discovery themes affords us a goodexample. Climate change is already causing severe damage to the livesand livelihoods of millions of people throughout the world. The poor andmarginalized communities are particularly vulnerable to ecological imbal-ances. It is not hyperbole to say that we are living in a global system in crisisand that, as a result, there is a profound need for radical change in howsocieties function. In Latin America, extensive agribusiness, oil extraction,and open mining have increased temperatures and decreased biodiversity intropical forests with devastating effects on indigenous communities. This is acomplex multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary issue that crosses geographicboundaries and represents the type of library challenge engaged librariansshould seamlessly handle.

The Center for Latin American Studies brought to campus a small andselect group of specialists or activists from Latin America and the United

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:59

01

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Roles of Engagement 231

States with the hope of promoting a long-lasting dialogue and intense dis-cussion of these pressing problems and their possible solutions envisionedfrom the postcolonial south. Faculty members from several units and diversespecialties participated in this event.

As part of this event, the librarian made available an old-fashionedbibliography of relevant sources, provided publicity on the Latin Americanportion of the library’s Web site, and offered event space in the library.In addition, the librarian also brought other interested library partners intothe event and lobbied for its proceedings to be published in Alter/Nativas.By building on OSU’s discovery themes, the librarian facilitated multi-disciplinary research, open access scholarship, partnerships, and deeperengagement.

PARTNER

The librarian as partner has two major duties: to participate in researchand to communicate its outcome. Engagement, if properly pursued, seam-lessly dovetails into these responsibilities. To be engaged is to participatein research. To participate in research is to bring your own ideas onhow to make the overall project better and, finally, to assist in itsdissemination.

Although the traditional research pathway has remained consistent,the engaged librarian’s role has shifted. Earlier this year, a professorcame over seeking my help. She found herself teaching a rather unortho-dox course based on travelers accounts, road trips, and pilgrimages inmedieval Spain. Our first planning meeting, although inconclusive, cen-tered on sources: what sources to use and where to find them. Aftersome additional discussions, I suggested an expansion of our researchteam. Another engaged librarian, who had graduate training in medievalEurope, came onboard and expanded the vision of possible sources, time-lines, and spaces. The new project focused on public domain scannedimages, interactive maps, and period resources available via digital repos-itories, such as the Hathi Trust and Google books. The traditional way ofdoing business also received its due attention. The library placed mate-rials, unavailable via digital repositories, on reserve and purchased a fewnewer items for the course. Throughout the semester, the librarians offeredlectures, monitored the class via the course management system, and metadditional requests for resources as they became known. In good engage-ment fashion, the librarians served in multiple roles—teachers, partners, andconsultants.

One exciting development for engagement and partnership is that thelibrarian is no longer place bound. I mentioned the need to remain in theflow, which happens in many places. Recently, I found myself attending a

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:59

01

Nov

embe

r 20

14

232 J. O. Díaz

job talk in one of the units I serve. An e-mail popped up on my screenfrom one of the professors sitting in the room. She needed an 1832 imprintunavailable in our collection and unobtainable via interlibrary loan. Afterpaying tribute to the basic protocol of checking our catalog and determiningthe item’s unavailability, I searched the Hathi Trust, located the two-volumeset, downloaded the PDF, and e-mailed my patron the file. This traditionalreference transaction took less than 15 minutes. The lesson here is clear: itdoes not matter where the librarian resides, the fact remains that the libraryhas left the building.

VISIONARY

Vision is perhaps the most critical component of the engagement model.It refers to where a person or entity intends to be or what he or she intendsto get done at some later time. Time is of the essence. To have a visionassumes that you understand your constituencies’ needs, expectations, andreality. It requires a full grasp of the surrounding ecosystem, and it denotesacceptance and humility.

Vision accepts that it is not enough to know the current state. We mustalso know what will be valued in the future, monitor trends, and pre-dict upcoming implications so that librarians can begin to take appropriateaction now and lay the foundation for future success. The right visionis humble. It concedes that librarians are no longer the sole experts infinding and using information. It acknowledges a real loss of authority,understands that ownership has given way to access, and recognizes thechallenge of abundance, as well as the rise of mobile devices, social net-works, online education, and flipped classrooms and the transformationof college campuses. Therefore, the right vision is about acceptance andproactivity, knowledge and skills upgrading, and change and successionplanning.

Vision is also about seeing the big picture. There is no room underengagement for a machine-like approach to librarianship where only indi-vidual collections, worn out routines, and old habits rule the day. Theengaged librarian acts as a system analyst who researches problems, engi-neers solutions, and coordinates new ways of meeting his constituencies’needs. The capacity to see the big picture is, as Pink (2008) admonished us,a powerful “antidote to a variety of woes brought forth in part . . . by theremarkable prosperity and plenitude of our time” (p. 139). Librarians, teach-ers, and learners all find themselves overwhelmed by information. Whatbetter role for an engaged librarian, with a penchant for system thinkingand a grasp of the big picture, than to advance a vision of library servicesfixed on the substantial, the possible, the indispensable, and, at times, theimaginable?

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:59

01

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Roles of Engagement 233

CONCLUSION

Engagement will soon become the new normal in institutions of higherlearning. The six roles outlined above are the cornerstones of a vision oflibrary services in which every librarian will represent a comprehensive ser-vice point. Every librarian will have the advanced education and professionalinterest to collaborate within the academic ecosystem he or she serves. Everylibrarian, like a conductor, will capably step on the stage and pull it alltogether. Every librarian will be unafraid of the enormity of the big picture.

In the end, it is the big picture that truly matters. Institutions such asOSU are forging ahead under the rubric of “one university.” They recognized,before librarians did, that the academic enterprise is in transition and that acomprehensive and flexible vision is needed. The library too is in transition.Librarians, as Branin et al. (2000) maintained, will struggle with changesin scholarly communication, the new economics of information acquisition,and the need to create and expand roles for themselves in this system.Engagement, with its emphasis on expertise, vision, and collaboration, isa step in that direction.

REFERENCES

Bliss, J., & Askew, M. (1996). Effective teaching and learning: scaffolding revisited.Oxford Review of Education, 22, 37–61.

Branin, J., Groen, F., & Thorin, S. (2000). The changing nature of collectionmanagement in research libraries. Library Resources & Technical Services, 44,23–32.

Dempsey, L. (2008). Reconfiguring the library systems environment. portal: Librariesand the Academy, 8, 111–120.

Fields, A. M. & Díaz, K. R. (2008). Fostering community through digital storytelling:A guide for academic libraries. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Hahn, K. (2009). Introduction: Positioning liaison librarians for the 21st century.Research Library Issues, 265, 1–2. Retrieved from http://publications.arl.org/rli265/2

Parsons, A. (2010). Academic liaison librarianship: Curatorial pedagogy or pedagog-ical curation? Ariadne, (65). Retrieved from http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue65/parsons

Pink, D. H. (2006). A whole new mind: Moving from the information age to theconceptual age. New York: Riverhead Books.

Williams, K. (2009). A framework for articulating new library roles. Research LibraryIssues: A Bimonthly Report from ARL, CNI, and SPARC, 265, 3–8. Retrieved fromhttp://publications.arl.org/rli265/4

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

th D

akot

a St

ate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:59

01

Nov

embe

r 20

14