Back to Fundamentals | From the Bell Tower

Steven Bell -- Library Journal, 04/02/2009

Welcome to the first edition of “From the Bell Tower.” In days of old, most towns had a bell tower, which, in addition to sounding the time, or special events, also served as an alarm of impending danger so the townspeople could join together to prevent the demise of their community. Then again, sometimes it was a signal for everyone to forget the town, and head for the hills.

By way of an introduction, I hesitate to be too specific about what you will find here. Last week’s column on the ACRL National Conference will give you some idea of what to expect. But as it is with any new venture the column will take on a shape of its own as it unfolds. Suffice it to say, academic librarianship and higher education are two of my passions, and I look forward to writing about them. If you are a loyal reader of Library Journal’s Academic Newswire then I suspect you share my passions, and I look forward to sharing my perspectives with you, and I hope you in turn will share your perspectives as well, (hopefully, using the talkback feature here).

A question
Two things I’d like to achieve in this column are to help readers learn new things and keep them up-to-date with current developments in the field. The more you know about what is happening in our profession and in higher education the better prepared you are to future-proof your academic library. With so much happening in higher education and in our academic libraries right now, truly hard-hitting waves impacting our professional world, perhaps a good place to start is to go back to the fundamentals.

At ALA Midwinter I had the privilege of participating in the Taiga Forum, an informal gathering of associate university librarians and associate directors at academic libraries. The morning of the day-long meeting was devoted to developing a set of “Provocative Questions.” Eventually, the discussion got around to things like budgets and assessment, two of the most talked about issues confronting higher education and academic libraries. Surprisingly, however, the two questions that really seemed to capture the participants’ attention were: what does it mean to be an academic librarian? And, what does it mean to be an academic library?

Hardly the type of questions you would expect to hear at a meeting of associate university librarians and associate directors of mostly large academic libraries. Perhaps just the fact that this group raised these questions tells us more about the current state of our profession than our answers ever could. By the way, no one really even tried to answer. So, I thought, in my inaugural column, maybe I should try to help us all get a better handle on what kind of answers we might come up with. 

Three things
To me, being an academic librarian means being three things: collaborator; educator; relationship builder. A successful academic librarian blends these qualities. Achieving success requires collaboration with your campus colleagues, primarily connecting with faculty but also instructional technologists, writing tutors, residential life staff, and anyone who interacts with students as potential partners. It all hinges on being integrated into the teaching and learning process on your campus. Whether you reach students in physical or virtual spaces an academic librarian succeeds with a proactive approach to helping students achieve learning outcomes. And if we fail to deliver meaning to our user community, we lose.

A great academic library, meanwhile, provides the right conditions to make these three things possible. It stays focused on designing and delivering a great experience the community it serves. Again, if it’s broken, if it doesn’t work, if we don’t add value, we lose. Libraries will continue to be about collections, services, building, assessment, and all those other important things. But now is the time to consider what business we are really in and why it matters to our users.

Now, let me ask you: what does it mean to be an academic librarian? 


Steven Bell is Associate University Librarian, Temple University (Philadelphia, PA).  For more from Steven visit his blogs, Kept-Up Academic Librarian, ACRLog and Designing Better Libraries or visit his web site

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