Responding to the information needs for research success : the role of the research librarian
Paper presented at the Annual LIS Research Symposium, 24-25 July 2014, at UNISA Science Campus, Florida
Making meaningful connections: evaluating an embedded librarian pilot project to improve nursing scholarly writing.
The Health Sciences Library, University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), serves 6 colleges (medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, allied health, and graduate health sciences) consisting of approximately 2,000 students and 800 faculty and researchers. The library liaison program has been in place for years, whereby each librarian is assigned as the key contact between the library and campus colleges and is readily available to answer questions in various ways (e.g., telephone, email, text message, and online chat). However, the use of traditional library service is declining, which signifies changing needs that lead to new ways to provide library services 1. Embedding librarians in academic courses might be one of the approaches to meet the changing needs 1. 
 
The term “embedded librarian” describes librarians' involvement at macro (college, department, or program) and micro (course) levels 2. Key characteristics of embedded librarians include going out of the library and into library user groups, building strong relationship, providing customized and value added services, working as team members and collaborators, and contributing to the success of ongoing projects 3. Kesselman and Watstein described “embedded” as intensive integration into the user group, where patrons have multiple opportunities to interact with the librarian 4. They summarized embedded librarianship with two important factors: “integration and collaboration” 4. 
 
A search of the literature found numerous publications reporting the integration of librarians into nursing courses and their collaboration with nursing faculty to assist with student learning and information literacy. Librarians at the Welch Medical Library integrated information resources and library instruction throughout the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing curricula 5. Dorner, Taylor, and Hodson-Carlton described their collaboration with nursing faculty to design a tiered approach to building nursing student research skills 6. Librarians at Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library, George Washington University, have been embedded in online classes in its School of Nursing and School of Medicine and Health Sciences and are providing library services to their distant students 7. At Auburn University Montgomery, a librarian and the School of Nursing faculty collaborated to create a library database search module and integrated it into a course, “Computers in Nursing,” to enhance students' database searching skills via their course management system 8. Carlock and Anderson reported their instructional program whereby a librarian worked with nursing faculty to teach students evidence-based practice searching skills 9. However, only a few articles used the term “embedded” to describe the librarian's involvement and participation in nursing courses 7, 10, 11. Few articles were found in the literature specifically reporting librarians integrated into a graduate nursing online course to provide in-depth research and writing assistance at the point of need. Few high-quality research studies reported the outcomes of embedded programs 12. 
 
This paper describes an embedded librarian pilot project and seeks to evaluate the project's benefits and value from multiple outlets. It provides a model that can be used by others to develop and provide much needed evaluation of the embedded librarian program. Lessons learned and challenges are also discussed.
The New ‘U’
Today's talk about tenure must be framed within broader discussions about the role of the university. Our university system is now over one hundred years old, the “Old-Time College” is gone, the “cold war” university is no longer viable, and the foundations of the modern “multiversity” are cracking, so it is time to talk about change. But change is not necessarily reform, and resisting change probably will not keep things the way they are, so academics must understand the forces reshaping the university. Whenever I listen to colleagues defend the status quo by saying that the United States has a university system that is the envy of the world, I hear echoes of the Detroit automobile industry's casual dismissal of foreign competitors in the early 1960s. The decision not to change did not preserve the auto industry, and it is unlikely to preserve public universities as we know them. The current debates about tenure began with ideological attacks on “tenured radicals” who used their secure jobs to subvert conservative cultural values. The attack on tenure gathered steam as fiscal hawks in financially-strapped states looked for ways to save money and found huge state university systems with budgets to match. When asked why he robbed banks, the legendary Willie Sutton replied, “Because that's where the money is.” When asked why they are robbing tenure, legislators, regents, and administrators reply, “Because that's where the money is.” Personnel costs are a large share of university budgets and tenure ties the hands of administrators and legislators accustomed to using purse strings to control universities.