The Resource Team Model: An Innovative Mentoring Program for Academic Librarians

Abstract

Mentoring is a service activity that librarians must engage in to ensure a smooth integration of new library faculty. This case study describes the process of implementing a new mentoring model approach in an academic library, the Resource Team Model (RTM). The California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) Resource Team is an innovative model of mentoring, coaching, and training which includes a broader network of support for mentors and mentees.¹ It is formed by a trinity of mentor librarians with different strengths who mobilize for six months to guide and support one new librarian. The main objectives of this model are to acclimatize the mentee to all areas of librarianship and to the culture of the new organization. The RTM ensures that new librarian mentees have the tools and support to move seamlessly into the fabric of the organization and to flourish professionally as they move towards tenure. The RTM approach is not a group mentoring, a mutual mentoring network, or a mentoring circle model as described in the literature. The advantages and disadvantages of the model are discussed, and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and pressures from both the mentor and mentee perspective at the CSULB University Library are examined.

Keywords:

• mentoring
• university libraries
• case study
• resource team

Notes

1. Mentee is used interchangeably with mentoree and protégé.

2. In the United States, the term “Tenure-Track Faculty” is assigned to faculty who are hired with the intention of moving to a tenured position. Thus, “Tenured Faculty” is a term assigned to faculty members awarded teaching permanence in a university upon successful completion of a probationary period that may take up to six years in a tenure-track appointment.

3. The Reappointment, Tenure, and Promotion (RTP) Committee is the librarian peer review committee that evaluates the progress of non-tenured faculty and ultimately recommends for or against a tenured (permanent) appointment.

4. Currently, another campus of the California State University system is in the first year of a librarian mentor program mirroring the CSULB model.