Engaging with Engagement: An Administrator's Perspective

Engagement defies convention. The model for engaged librarians tasks them to strategically integrate libraries into the research and instruction cycle and to create a learning environment that combines the discovery and use of appropriate information sources into the research processes of students and faculty.

This editorial does not challenge the engaged librarian model. Instead, it supplements that model by focusing on the hitherto unexplored role of administrators in preparing and implementing this new paradigm. It acknowledges the complexity of engagement and ponders how administrators could think about it, mentor their staff, and use the inevitable criticism as an asset.

Engaging from the Top

Library administrators who implement a pervasive engagement agenda impose a crisis. By necessity and design, they upset the proverbial apple cart. In a field that values predictability and quality control, and that typically is risk-averse, these administrators ask their colleagues to change time-honored processes and routines. They remove the familiar and shift to a new model. Like all new paradigms, this one elicits a backlash. Administrators should be prepared to respond to this reaction, and its accompanied concerns, with a solid understanding of why this change is important for the organization and the profession.

Some Background on Engagement

The literature on engagement continues to grow at a robust pace. Its foundational document, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Framework for Articulating New Library Roles, has been joined by a new crop of articles tackling, among other things, librarian roles and the gap between skills and demands. This scholarship emphasizes the shift from mere service to partnership building, and it implicitly acknowledges that change has become a permanent feature of the library's and the university's ecosystems.¹

Some of this literature chronicles the development and history of the liaison model and its transition to engagement. Another segment addresses the need for librarians to assume new and more aggressive engagement roles. Such concepts as social capital and relationship building between librarians and faculty have been covered extensively. Finally, methodologies to assist the liaison librarian to make "all the right moves" and participate in "playful engagement" look at ways to bridge the gap between traditional roles and contemporary demands.²

This rich and expanding corpus of literature, however, is virtually silent on the role that library administrators, at all levels of the organization, must undertake when implementing the engagement model. Learning how upper and middle managers could realign the tools and human capital they have at their disposal will provide a big payoff. Examining the putative roles of library directors and department heads and sharing the burden of expectations will help administrators clarify, if not cope with, the stresses and strains of the engagement model.

Administrators should adopt a multifaceted approach to implementing engagement. This method, I argue, requires them to develop a sense of urgency, articulate a vision, assess and mentor their staff, prioritize goals and remove barriers, and manage resistance. In other words, it urges library leaders to engage with engagement.

Develop a Sense of Urgency

Changes in information delivery, data-seeking habits, and material formats have conspired to make the library's old ways of doing business quaint, if not downright obsolete. Even in this fluid environment, administrators should not assume that their colleagues understand that change is inevitable. They must not imagine that all librarians want to "get with the times" and follow newer professional trends. Administrators cannot take for granted that their colleagues understand or care that the library's and the university's future are inextricably linked. They should never presuppose that all members of their unit share a similar vision for the future. It is the administrator's job to develop a healthy sense of urgency across the organization, and, at the same time, to make a case for change.

Developing a sense of urgency around the necessity for change is vital to a library that wants to remain relevant and indispensable to its campus. Building such a sense entails far more than showing liaisons and subject librarians how reference statistics have plummeted or talking about Google and mobile technology. It requires an open and...