8. Renegotiating the Traditional Reference/Instruction Librarian and Patron Rela
8. Renegotiating the Traditional Reference/Instruction Librarian and Patron Relationship | Readings
Anita R. Walz
This section will be most relevant for librarians or librarians-in-training. Taking on a longer-term role as a consultant or coach requires a paradigm shift regarding the librarian roles. Ultimately, it requires renegotiation of what may be considered a traditional reference/instruction librarian and patron relationship.
Learning Objectives
Learners should be able to:
- Librarians and future librarians will be able to articulate ways in which a consultative partnership is different than a traditional one-and-done teaching, reference, or short-term consultative relationship.
- Non-librarian subject matter experts will be able to identify some of the expectations on which they may be asked to operate, and those they may need to navigate in the future in order to form productive working relationships with healthy boundaries among individuals with very different job expectations than their own.
Assignment
- Interview a respected, experienced librarian regarding their experiences working as both a reference or instruction librarian, and in ongoing collaborative partnerships with subject matter experts.
- In comparison, how have their expectations varied?
- At what point in their career did they begin to differentiate between consultations and partnerships, if they have?
- What advice might they give a new librarian regarding forming long-term collaborations with subject matter experts?
- If they have navigated boundary-setting, how have they done this successfully?
Being a consultant or coach is much more of a partnership than a transactional relationship. Rather than one or two-shot instructional sessions on a somewhat predictable schedule or a one-and-done reference interaction, the librarian’s role as a consultant or coach will most likely require iterative consultations, collaborative goal setting, regular checkins, identification of preferred methods for communication, and articulation of clear expectations from both parties. The expectation for a consultative partnership is best established at the start of a consultative or coaching relationship but will need to be revisited throughout the partnership.
Faculty and graduate students consulting with you need to know what they should expect from a librarian in a consultant or coaching role—and such librarians are wise to also articulate what they expect from faculty.
Being a librarian in a consultant or coaching role requires that you:
- Carry yourself as an equal in the partnership. Even though you are coaching, your collaborator owns their project. They are ultimately responsible for doing the work. The librarian coach or consultant is not the collaborator’s assistant or research intern. While the librarian could help the collaborator with many additional things, the librarian’s role is consultant and coach. The librarian must learn to say “no” and not offer to take on work beyond the