Tony HorovCoordinatobthorava@u

482 The Jou

PERSPECTIVES ON...! A New Approach to Faculty–Librarian

Collaboration: A ‘‘New Professors’ Fund’’for Collection Development

by Tony Horava

Available online 21 July 2005

The University of Ottawa implemented a ‘NewProfessors’ Fund as a targeted strategy for

establishing a collaborative relationshipbetween new faculty and librarians. An amount

of $2000 per professor was earmarked forselection. The rationale, process, and outcomes

of the initiative are described. The impact oncollection development is explored.

a, Collections and Information Resourcesr, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canadaottawa.caN.

rnal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 31, Number 5, pages 482–48

INTRODUCTION

Collaboration between faculty and librarians is a commonplacein library literature and in the academic environment. PeggyJohnson writes that ‘‘By learning as much as possible about thespecialties, needs, and interests of their assigned faculties,academic library selectors increase their ability to develop acollection that serves these specialties, needs, and interests.’’1

New librarians in particular are schooled by their colleagues inways of developing outreach with the faculty. The importance ofcommunication, networking, in-depth knowledge of the pro-grams, and proactive marketing is clearly understood as leadingto a fruitful relationship with faculty. They are certainly centralin developing a dynamic collection that is attuned to changingneeds and expectations. Donham and Green talk about a cultureof collaboration: ‘‘Collaboration between a librarian and afaculty member has several important attributes: mutual goals,mutual respect, advance planning, and substantive contributionsby both parties for designing instructional goals and activitiesand then carrying them out.’’2 Collaboration between thelibrarian and the new faculty member has its own particulardynamic, since first impressions can lead to long-term percep-tions and patterns of interaction. Moreover, new faculty havedifferent expectations and experience than their older col-leagues, and this impacts on their approach to research andteaching, and consequently on their relationship with the library.In light of these realities, the University of Ottawa decided totake a new and innovative approach to collaborative collectiondevelopment with new faculty.

The University of Ottawa is a comprehensive doctoraluniversity in Canada’s capital city, Ottawa, located inOntario, Canada. It offers 230 programs in ten faculties(Arts, Social Sciences, Education, Management, Engineering,Science, Law, Medicine, Health Sciences, and GraduateStudies). In 2004–2005, there were 31,439 students includ-ing 27,603 undergraduates and 3838 at the Masters and PhDlevel. The libraries are comprised of the following: theMorisset Arts and Sciences Library, the Brian Dickson LawLibrary, the Health Sciences Library, and the Music library.The acquisitions budget in 2004–2005 was approximately 9million dollars.

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Each recent year a significant number of new tenure-trackfaculty is hired (approximately 100) and as the professorate agesit is expected that there will be a steady wave of new hires in thecoming years. It is critical that we reach out to these professorsand engage them in a partnership and regular dialogue with thelibrary. As new strategic directions are charted in the 21stcentury, these faculty members will help shape the culture anddynamic of the university. Moreover, these faculty membersfrequently work in areas of research that are interdisciplinary,team oriented, and rapidly evolving.

Academic libraries have traditionally allocated funds on adiscipline by discipline basis, examining the collection needsaccording to parameters based on costs, research output,curriculum requirements, number of students, interlibrary loansuse, and other factors. Formats (print, electronic, microform) anddocument types (monograph, serials) have a major impact on theallocation process. This paradigm, which reflected the structuresof knowledge in academia in the pre-Internet era, is straining atthe seams in the global research environment we find ourselvesin today. There are no easy answers for refashioning collectiondevelopment practices and approaches to match the rapidlyevolving areas of research in which faculty – particularly newfaculty – are conducting research. How best to respond to theirresearch program, within budgetary constraints, is a majorchallenge.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INITIATIVE

The University of Ottawa Libraries found that some new facultymembers are working in emerging areas of research in which wepreviously have never developed collections. Acting upon asuggestion from one of the deans, we decided to allocate moniesto new professors to best determine what library materials wouldmeet their research needs and as identified in the libraries’strategic plan. The amount of $2000 was allocated per newprofessor (to be spent in the library). Discretionary funds withinthe collections budget were set aside at the beginning of thefiscal year for this purpose, rather than newmonies being sought.The funding decision was a consequence of the strategicdirection adopted by the library to support new tenure-trackprofessors. With ninety new tenure-track faculty hired in July2004, an amount of $180,000 was appropriated in a new centralfund.

Lists of new faculty and contact information were obtainedfrom the various faculties and compiled into a master with thename of the corresponding liaison librarian. An amount of$2000 was determined as a reasonable yardstick of what wewould expect each new faculty member to spend. Withoutpegging a dollar figure to the initiative, it is quite possible thatsome faculty members may have requested or anticipated amuch larger – and unrealistic – sum.

For tracking purposes, a shared fund was created for all ordersencumbered on this fund. Using the Millenium Acquisitionsmodule in the Innovative ILS, a note field was used foridentifying the name of the professor associated with each order.Using the ordering information, a PERL script was created inorder to track the orders and deliver the information as an htmlpage. Librarians were informed and encouraged to bookmark thepage. Since the page was updated on a daily basis, this allowedthe librarians to monitor the allocation of the money for eachprofessor within their sphere of responsibility. It provided basicinformation (title, estimated price, document status, amountpaid, date paid, and receiving date) arranged by professor’s

name. Librarians were enabled to monitor the progress of ordersand to gage how much had been spent. While the pattern ofexpenditure was slow at first, the pace picked up after the initialtwo months.

For a formal tracking mechanism, the order data wereexported into a Microsoft Access database on a biweekly basisand forwarded to librarians in Snapshot format. It provided orderinformation organized by faculty. Professors’ names were listedin alphabetical order under each faculty, and there was an entryfor each title ordered. The title, author, and imprint wereprovided, as well as order date, purchase order number, theamount encumbered and paid, and the status (open or received).At the end of the entries was a running balance for eachprofessor. This could be used to provide the professor with aclear statement of what was ordered and how much each itemwould cost.

A meeting was held with librarians to explain the purpose andprocedures for the new initiative. As this was a new approach,there were many questions: What about requests for serials?What about ordering out-of-print material? E-resources? Vid-eos? It was emphasized that this was one-time money and thatany new serial titles requiring an ongoing commitment (e.g.,print or online journals, databases, etc.) would have to beassessed and paid from regular budget funds. Since the moneyneeded to be spent by the end of the fiscal year, librarians wereasked to explain to faculty that forthcoming or not-yet-publishedtitles could not be ordered on the fund. As well, there was thepossibility of requested titles being received automatically viaapproval plans (we have book approval plans in a number ofdisciplines in the social sciences, humanities, health sciences,and law) which could lead to duplicates being received.However, this was not seen to be a problem since approvalbooks are received in a timely fashion and the acquisitions staffwould identify any duplicate requests. Orders on the newprofessors’ fund were treated as priority by the Acquisitionsstaff, so as to expedite the process of acquiring the items and toprovide quality service.

Following the meeting above, the liaison librarians contactedthe new professors and explained the initiative to them. Liaisonlibrarians normally contact new professors to discuss librarysupport and services, but the initiative broadened the scope ofthat dialogue. As the monies needed to be spent in the currentfiscal year, it was determined that new professors would be givena deadline (March 1st) beyond which any balances would bereturned to library funds. As librarians had been in activeconsultation with new faculty over a period of several months,they were able to combine their understanding of the professors’research interests with knowledge of collection developmenttools and sources to discover additional titles to recommend tonew faculty for purchase.

The overarching goal of the initiative was to build bridgeswith new faculty members. The key aim was to establish anongoing relationship with the library and librarians, as soon aspossible after faculty members were hired. The $2000 allocationwas seen as a way of jump-starting the process. Buying relevantresearch material was certainly of great importance, but bridgebuilding can lead to a number of other benefits, such as anawareness of the library’s resources and constraints, both forprint and electronic collections; an early understanding of libraryservices such as interlibrary loans and document delivery;policies regarding weeding and gifts; personalized researchassistance; information literacy seminars for the new professor’s

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students; and, perhaps most important, developing a professio-nal relationship of trust that will likely last for many years. Firstimpressions of the library do count! In a survey of University ofManitoba librarians in 2000, Ducas and Michaud-Oystrykdiscovered that ‘‘Ninety-four percent of the librarians reportedthat interaction in the area of collections had improvedcommunication with faculty.’’3 New faculty members seekingto establish a research program are very interested in how thelibrary collection can support their needs. The spin-off benefitsare evident.

RESULTS

When the fund closed, we had ordered a total of 1322 items for acost of $94,183 CDN (the average cost was $71.24). Theremaining balance in the fund was returned to the individuallibraries. Considering the initiative began halfway through thefiscalyear, the results arepositive.Newfaculty requestedbooks ina wide range of disciplines as well as videos and sheet music. Asignificant number of titles in French, German, and Italian wereordered.Participationwas strongest in the faculties ofArts, SocialSciences,Management, and Engineering in terms of the amountsspent and the number of faculty for whom orders were placed.

The initiative was well received by the faculty memberswho participated, and positive comments were received. Theuniversity administration saw it as a proactive means ofwelcoming and integrating new faculty members into theacademic environment.

There were seventeen faculty members who ordered materialfor a value greater than $2000 (the highest being $2481) whilethirty-two did not respond to our initiative at all. Unfortunately, itis a fact of life in academia that some professors are notinterested in library, until they have a pressing need for researchmaterial that they cannot access elsewhere. The late start to theinitiative (November 2004) was another factor. That we orderedan average of twenty-three items for each faculty member whodid respond was a very encouraging outcome.

One of the interesting results was the distribution ofpublication dates for ordered items. An analysis of one hundredrandomly selected titles revealed that only thirty-two had beenrecently published (in 2004 or 2005). Fifty-four titles werepublished between 1995 and 2003, while fourteen had beenpublished before 1995. One can conclude that approximatelytwo-thirds of ordered material is not current. Even science andengineering professors were requesting older titles! Thisprovides clear evidence that the initiative is perceived as amethod of identifying and filling gaps in the collection, basedon the knowledge and expertise of the faculty. Adding greaterdepth to the collection has been an unanticipated bonus(assuming that all of these items can be located andpurchased—it is quite likely that some orders will eventuallybe cancelled). Analysis and selection for retrospective subjectcoverage is a very time-consuming activity for librarians. Asour collections budgets in the 1990s were very low, ourcollection development approach was quite selective, and it isnot surprising that various subject weaknesses have surfaced.The fact that newly hired faculty members have innovativeareas of research interest – some of which would not haveexisted a decade ago – is another factor to be considered.

ISSUES

The initiative has important implications for collection devel-opment allocation procedures. First, it impacts traditional

484 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

allocation practices since these amounts reflect the hiringtrends of the university rather than the normal supply anddemand indicators used (e.g., numbers of students, cost ofbooks and journals, graduate programs, reliance on interlibraryloans, etc.). These trends reflect the demographics of theprofessorate, or the graying of the faculty. They also reflect theareas of growth in the university, since new positions arecreated in fields where the university has forged a strategiccommitment in relation to areas of excellence and opportunity.The new professors’ initiative is becoming, in essence, addemandT factor that cuts across the normal approach to budgetallocation and requires a shift in collections optics.

The initiative was not without controversy. Some librariansfelt that there was no need to have such a fund since we wouldnormally acquire everything, or almost everything, that afaculty member would find important. The idea of allocating$2000 per professor was also seen as problematic, since itcould give the impression that this was the maximum thatcould be spent, or that an unused balance could be carriedforward to the following year. As mentioned above, we did notblock any professor who went beyond the allocation in areasonable manner.

The librarians and acquisitions staff spent a significantamount of time in micromanaging the daccountsT of each of theprofessors. As a result of the faculty hiring distribution, somelibrarians were responsible for five or ten new professors, andone librarian had twenty! Librarians already overburdened withwork saw this as an unnecessary layer of management.Acquisitions staff, likewise overburdened, had to track thebalances and orders for all new professors.

Communication was another issue. Some faculty misunder-stood the nature of the initiative and thought that they werebeing given money to use for their own personal collection. Ithad to be explained that these materials would be housed in thelibrary. Other faculty were unclear as to what kinds of materialcould be bought, and still others were under the impression thatthey would not be order any items in future years.

The initiative brings into relief the role of the selector versusthe role of faculty in developing the collection. Subjectlibrarians are responsible for developing and managingcollections in their areas of expertise, and new faculty needto understand this as they begin collaborating on collectiondevelopment issues. There is a partnership approach betweenfaculty and librarian that underpins the philosophy of theinitiative, linking communication issues and role assumptions.This is a challenging and problematic aspect of collectiondevelopment in academia. As Christiansen, Stombler, andThaxton point out in their report on sociological perspectives offaculty–librarian relations: ‘‘On the one hand, faculty do notview librarians as having specific expertise in the faculty’sdiscipline to discern the appropriate materials for a particularcourse or research project; on the other hand, librarians viewfaculty as relatively illiterate on matters of informationtechnology, search techniques, and so forth.’’4 The presentinitiative can help promote better understanding of each party’srole in the collaborative exercise of collection building, and,hopefully, modify the above perceptions.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

The first year for this model of faculty–librarian collaborationproved successful. We learned that new faculty members see itas valuable for developing a collection that is pertinent to their

research program; we also learned that there are a number ofother benefits in terms of developing a broad dialogue betweenlibrarians and the new professors. Following assessment, it wasdecided that the initiative should become an ongoing activity.How do we see it being improved in the coming years?Communication is a key issue. To ensure everyone receives thesame message, a script is to be provided to librarians,summarizing the key parameters and providing specifics aboutwhat can be ordered and how the process works. A differentscript is to be provided to administrative assistants who willinclude the information in the package they provide to newtenure-track professors. Timing is important. In future, theprocess of contacting new professors will begin in the summer,in order to start the dialogue as soon as possible and allowadequate time for spending the allocated money. An additionalchallenge is the fact that faculty are hired at different points inthe year, although the majority are hired on July 1st. It meansthat we have to maintain clear lines of communication with thefaculties to ensure that we are informed of new hires on aregular basis. This will need to become integrated in theadministrative workflow.

In terms of tracking and reporting, we concluded that themechanisms used were more time consuming than they wereworth. As a result, we will not be maintaining a separate fundfor new professors’ for 2005–2006. Instead we will beallocating $2000 per new tenure-track professor to the regularsubject funds to greatly lessen the tracking requirements. As advirtual fundT this approach will ensure that all expenditures ina given discipline on a particular budget code can be tracked asa whole, thus integrating the amounts for new professors withthe regular allocation. This was viewed as an importantadjustment, from the point of view of librarians and acquis-itions staff.

Librarians will indicate the name of the new professor on theorder, and the information will be captured in the drequestorTfield in the order record. This will be verified in the master listof new professors’ names compiled from the faculties. Otherinformation captured will be as follows: destimated priceT,dpaidT, dreceivedT, dorderedT, and dfund codeT for exporting tothe abovementioned html Web page. While the title informa-tion is not being included, it will be possible to produce a list oftitles upon request. We do not anticipate a large number ofrequests. The Access report is not being retained, as the htmlWeb page will be adequate for tracking purposes and willprovide the benefits of being searchable and updated on a dailybasis.

The outcome strikes a nice balance between strategic valueand the pragmatic need to make the process more manage-able. An ongoing discussion in the library at various levelshas led to a refinement of the process and a focusing on theessentials. We anticipate approximately one hundred newfaculty to be hired in each of the next several years. Theimpact on firm orders in all disciplines, both current andretrospective, will be important to monitor. The quality ofrelationships between librarians and new faculty in collectiondevelopment and library services in general will be even morecritical to consider.

CONCLUSION

The initiative is seen as strategic in that it provides a meansof encouraging an early awareness for new academics of the

library’s role in the university. It reflects Kotler and Fox’sconcept of the dsocietal marketing orientationT that isimportant in today’s competitive post-secondary environ-ment: ‘‘A societal marketing orientation holds that the maintask of the institution is to determine the needs, wants, andinterests of its consumers and to adapt the institution todeliver satisfactions that preserve or enhance the consumer’sand society’s well-being and long-term interests.’’5 The newprofessors’ fund is a lever for enabling the library torespond directly to the needs, wants, and interests of newfaculty members and for fostering two-way communication.Developing a culture of trust and partnership is central tothe initiative. It is one strategy, among others, that will raisethe library’s profile in the midst of rapid evolution in theacademic milieu and help reposition the library at the heartof the university. It will certainly evolve as librarians’ roleschange over time.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Peggy Johnson, Fundamentals of Collection Development andManagement (American Library Association, Chicago: 2004)p. 187.

2. Jean Donham and Corey Williams Green, ‘‘Developing a Culture ofCollaboration: Librarian as Consultant,’’ Journal of AcademicLibrarianship 30 (4) (July 2004): 314.

3. Ada M. Ducas and Nicole Michaud-Oystryk, ‘‘Toward a NewVenture: Building Partnerships with Faculty,’’ College andResearch Libraries 65 (4): 340.

4. Lars Christiansen, Mindy Stombler, and Lyn Thaxton, ‘‘A Reporton Librarian–Faculty Relations from a Sociological Perspective,’’Journal of Academic Librarianship 30 (2) (March 2004): 116.

5. Philip Kotler and Karen F.A. Fox, Strategic Marketing forEducational Institutions (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ:1985) p. 11.

FURTHER READING

1. Mary Frances Casserly, ‘‘Developing a Concept of Collection forthe Digital Age,’’ Portal: Libraries and the Academy 2 (4) (2002):577–587.

2. Lars Christiansen, Mindy Stombler, and Lyn Thaxton, ‘‘AReport on Librarian–Faculty Relations from a SociologicalPerspective,’’ Journal of Academic Librarianship 30 (2) (March2004): 116–121.

3. Jean Donham and Corey Williams Green, ‘‘Developing a Culture ofCollaboration: Librarian as Consultant,’’ Journal of AcademicLibrarianship 30 (4) (July 2004): 314–321.

4. Ada M. Ducas and Nicole Michaud-Oystryk, ‘‘Toward a NewVenture: Building Partnerships with Faculty,’’ College andResearch Libraries 65 (2004): 334–348.

5. Richard Fyffe, ‘‘Technological Change and the Scholarly Commu-nications Movement: Reflections on Castells and Giddens,’’ LibraryResources and Technical Services 46 (2002): 50–61.

6. Peggy Johnson, Fundamentals of Collection Development andManagement. American Library Association, Chicago, 2004.

7. Philip Kotler and Karen F. Fox, A. Strategic Marketing for Educa-tional Institutions. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1985.

8. Clifford Lynch, ‘‘Digital Library Opportunities,’’ Journal ofAcademic Librarianship 29 (5) (September 2003): 286–289.

9. Linda L. Phillips and Sara L. Williams, ‘‘Collection DevelopmentEmbraces the Digital Age: A Review of the Literature, 1997–2003,’’ Library Resources and Technical Services 48 (October2004): 273–299.

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