SUBJECT LIBRARIANSHIP IN HKU LIBRARIES

1
SUBJECT LIBRARIANSHIPIN HKU LIBRARIES
JULAC Libraries Forum 13 Feb 09

• Irene Fung
• Education
• Librarian

• Lucinda Wong
• Arts
• Faculty Librarian

• Tina Yang
• Social Sciences
• Faculty Librarian

2
Outline

• History
• Goals
• Scope of responsibilities
• Challenges strategies
• Achievements
• Future trends
• Forthcoming projects

3
University of Hong Kong

• Architecture
• Arts
• Business Economics
• Dentistry
• Education

• Engineering
• Law
• Medicine
• Science
• Social Sciences

4
History of Establishment ofSubject Librarianship
at HKUL
Architecture
Arts
1 Faculty Librarian for 1 Faculty
2009
Business Economics
Social Sciences
Science Engineering (to be split)
Subject Librarians renamed Faculty Librarians
2007
Arts Architecture
Full-time Subject Librarians
2003
Business, Economics Social Sciences
Science Engineering
Part-time Subject Selectors / Faculty Coordinators
1998
Dental Librarian
1981
Music Librarian
1978
Education Librarian
1969
Law Librarian
1965
Medical Librarian
1932
Fung Ping Shan Librarian
5
Goals of Subject Librarianship

• Foster relationship with faculty and students
• Strengthen communication
• Better support scholarly and information needs of
  faculties
• Build, maintain and disseminate quality
  information resources
• Personalize service levels

6
Scope of Responsibilities

• Collection development
• Faculty liaison
• Reference library instruction
• Administration

7
Collection Development

• Establish collection development policies
• Map out collection building strategy with each
  department of the faculties
• Build collections in all formats
• Keep up-to-date on vendors/publishers
  information, publishing trends and new
  publications
• Assess collections
• Collaborate and share resources
• Monitor budget

8
Faculty Liaison

• Liaise constantly with faculty members and
  students to fully understand their research and
  teaching needs and collection development
  concerns
• Disseminate new publication information,
  publishers catalogues, publishing trends, etc.
  to faculties to assist in the selection and use
  of appropriate print and electronic resources
• Liaise with faculty members on all matters
  concerning the collections and services
• Liaise with faculty on serials rationalization
  exercise / budgeting / IR project, etc
• Attend faculty library committee meetings and
  other faculty events, etc.

9
Reference Library Instruction

• Create and maintain subject guides
• Answer in-depth reference enquiries
• Customize information skills training to meet
  research needs, either through one-to-one
  research consultations or on-site classes
• Establish a teaching partnership with faculty

10
Administration

• Compile annual reports and statistics
• Serve on faculty library committees and faculty
  boards, library task forces and Operational
  Priorities teams
• Faculty Librarians act as librarians of a virtual
  library
• Branch Librarians have added administrative
  responsibilities of a physical library and staff
  management

11
Challenges Strategies

• Positioning of Faculty Librarians
• how to reasonably set the position and roles of
  subject librarians among traditional functional
  librarians and services
• General vs. personalized services
• Reference Librarians focus on general courses
• Faculty Librarians focus on subject-specific or
  tailor-made instruction

12
Challenges Strategies (Contd)

• Core Values and Services
• how to find a balance between demands from users
  and capabilities of subject librarians
• how far can services of subject librarians reach
• Set out clear goals and objectives and not try to
  do everything
• Did a faculty needs survey and formulated and
  prioritized appropriate action plans
• Offer services within limit of our resources

13
Challenges Strategies (Contd)

• Skill and knowledge sets
• Require multi-skills to cope with
  responsibilities
• Acquire subject knowledge in a short time
• Attend various trainings such as workshops to
  enhance communication skills, instruction skills,
  etc.
• Enrich subject knowledge
• Pursue formal training, e.g. second Master
  degrees, etc.

14
Challenges Strategies (Contd)

• Trust and involvement by faculty
• Uneven response to our services
• How to gain trust and support from faculties
• Patient and constant contact with faculties to
  let them know of our willingness to help them,
  especially new staff
• Get to know their real needs and attend to them
  promptly
• Attend faculty activities , more outreach to
  faculty
• More marketing and promotion of our services

15
Achievements

• Enhanced communication and promoted outreach
• Offered more support to faculties to build
  quality collections
• Empowered users to make best use of information
  resources and technology
• Kept current with research interests and
  information needs through constant contacts with
  faculties and students

16
Achievements (Contd)

• Conducted collection assessment exercise
• Formulated subject policy statements
• Rationalized collections especially serials to
  streamline expenditure
• Raised the visibility of librarians generally on
  campus
• Contributed to a user-driven, rather than
  technology-driven, library

17
Future Trends

• Collection development
• The subject specialists role in collection
  development is changing due to consortial
  agreements and large interdisciplinary databases
• Focus on subject specific collections and
  databases and the rationalization of resources
• Interdisciplinary scholarship and research
• Need to collaborate with other subject librarians
  on interdisciplinary collections
• Proliferation of resources
• Need to work with tech staff to develop better
  and easier ways for patrons to find information
• Also continue to provide instruction

18
Future Trends (Contd)

• Digitization projects
• Digitize resources in specific subjects, e.g.
  Faculty of Dentistry Community Health Projects
• Faculty liaison
• Role as key marketing force of library to promote
  services and resources
• Act more as intermediary between library and
  faculties, e.g. participation in the IR project
  Scholars Hub
• Outreach services
• Provide more outreach services to faculties

19
Forthcoming Projects

• Establish a subject librarians extension service
  
• Develop a plan that will enable Subject
  librarians to go out to the faculties and set up
  an information consulting service
• Conduct an Arts Faculty office book delivery
  experiment
• Conduct a book delivery service experiment
  involving at least 3 departments of the Arts
  Faculty
• Rationalize E-resources
• Establish guidelines on how to rationalize
  duplication of e-resources and to identify
  low-used titles

20
Subject librarians at HKUL

• Are the librarys face, eyes and ears
• Have in-depth subject knowledge, teaching skills,
  people skills, and negotiating skills
• Are attuned to the needs of users, their
  information seeking habits, and the formats of
  information distribution in their subject fields
• Have a strong user-conscious perspective, hence
  can offer much in the way of personalized service
• Have the creativity, time, and patience to
  develop relationships with faculty and keep a
  finger on the pulse of faculty needs and concerns

21
THANK YOU!