Librarian as Communicator: Case Studies and International Perspectives

Communication has been a significant interest of mine in my career as a librarian in health sciences in Saudi Arabia, three Irish universities, and as a lecturer in librarianship at the University of Sierra Leone and consultant in Namibia, Tanzania, and Malaysia. Despite different contexts, cultures, and resources, the desire to communicate effectively was common to all environments. I have come to realise that “communication” underpins much of what I do. This includes running academic writing workshops for librarians, students, researchers, and academic staff in Ireland and internationally, developing a writing blog (academicwritinglibrarian.blogspot.ie), and contributing to the professional literature on academic writing. I am very conscious of the value of developing practice and research into articles for peer-reviewed and professional journals, book chapters and other outlets in order to reflect, gain insights, share experiences and knowledge and be part of a vibrant community of academic authors. Academic writing helps promote the visibility of the Library within the University. It also helps facilitate the sharing and dissemination of knowledge, experience, skills and practice that do not exist in the same framework elsewhere in the University. This sharing can bring about changes at both the Library and the University level and “has the potential to open up new dialogues, new partnerships and new ways of seeing and thinking” (Fallon, 2009, p. 421).

This insight into the importance of communication resulted in a 2016 call for contributions from the international academic library sector for papers on communication and the librarian. There were 46 submissions from librarians from 11 countries spread over four continents. This demonstrates that “communication” in its broadest understanding is an area that impacts globally in the academic library sector. An interesting element to the call were the diverse multi-communication channels used to seek contributions: websites, discussion lists, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail. Following a double blind peer review process, 24 abstracts were accepted: 1 was not submitted; 5 were subsequently withdrawn or rejected, leaving a total of 18 papers. Table 1 shows the geographic breakdown of the 46 submissions, the accepted submissions and the final papers.

Table 1. Details of papers submitted, accepted, and final submissions.

	Abstracts received by country	Abstracts accepted by country	Final submissions received by country
USA	17	6	3
UK	12	8	7
Ireland	6	5	4
Canada	2	—	—
India	2	1	—
Sweden	2	1	1
Australia	1	1	1
Croatia	1	—	—
Ghana	1	1	1
Nigeria	1	—	—
United Arab Emirates	1	1	1
Total	46	24	18

The majority of respondents are from countries where English is the first language and they are likely to have access to an extensive body of literature, resources, and expertise in their home institutions. I offered mentoring to two potential contributors who did not have this level of support, but whose proposals were deemed to be of significant value to the collection. As practitioners we have a responsibility to support emerging authors from developing countries.

This collection contains research investigations and case studies offering a rich diversity of themes, methodologies, and interpretations. It captures the exciting and innovative ways librarians are communicating because of the need to:

• maximize the value of print and electronic collections

• utilize social media platforms effectively

• disseminate research output

• market and promote library resources and services

• provide services across multiple campuses and locations

• improve internal and external engagement

Maximize the value of print and electronic collections

It is the special collections that a Library holds that makes it truly unique and these collections can help attract scholars, benefactors, and perhaps more unique collections (Haines & Jones, 2015). Caitlin McGurk at Ohio State University Library demonstrates how, through effective communication with Faculty, comic and cartoon art as primary resources can be embedded into the curriculum.

Digitization offers the potential to bring collections to a global audience. Digital scholarship is a relatively new field and A. Jane Burns explores the digitization of Special Collections using “The Mary Martin” diary—a World War I diary held in the National Library of Ireland—as a focal point. John Cox gives an in-depth review of the literature relating to new and emerging roles and suggests a specific communication strategy is needed in order to strongly position the Library. VandeBurgt and Rivera's case study from Florida Gold Coast University explores the Library's outreach activities to digitally preserve local cultural heritage: this involved building relations with local historic and cultural organization and providing guidance on digitization.

Utilize social media platforms effectively

Social media is most commonly used in customer service (Taylor & Francis, 2014). Chatten and Roughley present a study of University of Liverpool's experience in developing a social media presence. While there has been some decline in the use of blogs by libraries, alongside a dramatic increase in the use of Facebook (Mazzocchi, 2014), blogs remain a major communication tool. A survey of 100 top U.S. academic library websites found that blogs were the second most frequently used Web 2.0 tool (Boateng & Liu, 2014). The blog Libfocus.com is the subject of Dalton, Kouker, and O'Connor's article. Their study—of why and how Irish-based LIS professionals choose to communicate through blogging—found that blogging has retained and perhaps expanded its position despite a proliferation of new communication tools.

Rauh and McReynolds detail the experiences of setting up “The Research and Scholarship blog” at Syracuse University Library to “provide an effective and strategic venue to communicate and market its services and collections,” and assess its impact via Google Analytics and some qualitative evidence.

Social media is a useful tool for researchers for keeping up-to-date with trends and information in their field and for maximizing the visibility of their research output (Lupton, 2014; Van Noorden, 2014). Based on their work with researchers at Linköping University Library in Sweden, Persson and Svenningsson suggest that librarians can play a valuable role in helping researchers create social media strategies.

Disseminate research output

Maximizing the value of the scholarly output of Ghana's University for Development Studies, is the subject of Thompson, Akeriwe, and Aikins' case study.

Librarians play an active role in curating, promoting, and creating the research output of Faculty but their role as researchers is sometimes overlooked. O'Brien and Cronin cast light on the academic publishing output of Irish librarians, over a fifteen-year period, through a detailed survey and analysis of output in the peer-reviewed literature.

Market and promote library resources and services

Wynne, Dixon, Donohue, and Rowlands outline approaches to strategic marketing at the University of Leicester Library. Usage of the library influences student retention rates and performance (Soria, Fransen, & Nackerud, 2014; Stone & Ramsden, 2013). Bennett and Thompson suggest that anthropomorphic brand mascots (animals or objects that are altered in some way to resemble the human form) offer a new way “to bridge the gap between services and facilities and anxious students reluctant to use the Library.” They identify service benefits including the use of humor to make the various library services and facilities more memorable. Best practice guidelines are provided for introducing promotional mascots, based on the experience of the University of Portsmouth. Barnett, Bull, and Cooper discuss the planning, implementation and evaluation of a Pop-Up Library initiative at the University of Birmingham.

Provide services across multiple campuses and locations

The contribution of library services to the student experience is explored in Jolly and White's article on developing a collaborative “out-of-hours” enquiry service for a group of university libraries in the North of England. Collaboration across continents presents challenges as outlined by Parrott who explores the communication aspects of operating technical services at the New York University campus in Abu Dhabi.

Improve internal and external engagement

The Strategic Engagement Cycle as a new model for librarian communication is presented by Eldridge, Fraser, Simmonds, and Smyth. Communicating more effectively with postgraduate researchers, is explored by Petch, Fraser, Rush, Cope, and Lowe who, using action-research techniques, explore the essential components of effective communication including context, timelines, and channels. The University of Southern Queensland (USQ) Library embarked on a change process in 2015—“Vision 2022”—to position itself better to meet the current and future needs of the University. A new library staff structure and enhanced internal communication are some of the results detailed by O'Sullivan and Partridge. A variety of methods were used to build library staff capacity and confidence to engage with the process, including workshops, research and writing projects, and professional development opportunities.

Concluding comments

Editing this collection has been a new and really enriching experience for me. I am very grateful for this opportunity which gave me new insights into the ways librarians in diverse parts of the globe are communicating; insights into the process of editing a themed collection and new skills and learning in the process. I am particularly indebted to all the authors who committed to delivering contributions to what, I hope readers will agree, is a varied, research-informed, and interesting volume.