Creative Communities - BC Library Conference 2015

The liaison librarian model is toast. Worse, it was wrong to begin with. It reinforces the academic librarian as service provider rather than academic partner.   Academic librarians are "scholar practitioners." Both aspects of the role are critical to full participation in the academy. However, librarians and libraries have been slow to fully develop our capacity as researchers and teachers, and to establish our libraries as research incubators.  Advancing the research and teaching agenda of librarians requires a clear vision of our role, capacity building to enable new skills, and a new perspective on how research (and research culture) can become part of our professional lives.  In a similar way, academic libraries need to think of themselves as research incubators with specific research mandates. Every library should have a strategic research plan to leverage the capacities of its librarians, enabling a critical mass to address some of the key research questions of our field.  Enabling the scholar practitioner requires rethinking our professional role and reframing the mandate of the academic library. Perhaps the best way to realize the vision of the scholar practitioner is to loosen our ties to the library and branch out as our own academic department.