For immediate release:
September 28, 2009

For more information, contact:
Karla Hahn
Association of Research Libraries
202-296-2296
karla@arl.org

ARL Publishes Special Report on Liaison Librarian Roles

Washington DC—The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has released a report on liaison librarian roles as a special issue of Research Library Issues (RLI #265).

Guest edited by ARL's Karla Hahn, this special issue of RLI focuses on the evolution of new roles and institutional strategies for liaison work. Five articles identify emerging roles and consider the challenges of developing corresponding liaison capabilities. Authors from Minnesota, Berkeley, MIT, British Columbia, and NYU each reflect on their experiences and offer insights to fellow travelers mapping out their own routes to a new vision of liaison work. The full table of contents with links to the articles follows.

Introduction: Positioning Liaison Librarians for the 21st Century [PDF]
Karla Hahn, Assistant Executive Director, Research, Teaching, and Learning, ARL

A Framework for Articulating New Library Roles [PDF]
Karen Williams, Associate University Librarian for Academic Programs, University of Minnesota Libraries

Amplifying the Educational Role of Librarians [PDF]
Elizabeth A. Dupuis, Associate University Librarian for Educational Initiatives and Director of the Doe/Moffitt Libraries, University of California, Berkeley

The Last Mile: The Liaison Role in Curating Science and Engineering Research Data [PDF]
Tracy Gabridge, Co-Head, Engineering and Science Libraries, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Scholarly Communications: Planning for the Integration of Liaison Librarian Roles [PDF]
Joy Kirchner, Librarian for Collections, Licensing and Digital Scholarship, University of British Columbia Library

New Roles of Liaison Librarians: A Liaison’s Perspective [PDF]
Kara M. Whatley, Life Sciences Librarian and Head of the Coles Science Center, New York University

Research Library Issues: A Bimonthly Report from ARL, CNI, and SPARC (RLI) is a freely available, online-only publication released six times per year by the Association of Research Libraries. RLI focuses on the major issues that affect the ability of research libraries to meet the academic and research needs of the diverse communities they serve. RLI is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/rli/.

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 123 research libraries in North America. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/.