Nancy Noe and Bonnie MacEwan

Partners defined

Who then is a partner? The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘partner’ as:

One or more of these statements may well define, if not more aptly connote, library partners today. When asked to identify current partners, respondents in this study were hard pressed to list all internal and external partners. Comments such as ‘We could be here all day;’ ‘There are so many!’ and ‘Where does it end?’ suggest that libraries have moved well beyond a handful of traditional associations. In addition to lending and borrowing consortia, current and ongoing partners include technology and computing centers; open access development partners; course management systems groups; freshmen/first year experience offices; student groups; tutoring centers; writing centers; faculty governance assemblies; graduate schools; student library advisory councils; schools of library and information science; institutional repositories; marketing and public relations offices; off-site storage cohorts; living, learning, and service communities; teaching development centers; library instruction and information literacy stakeholders; curriculum development teams; academic program coordinators; faculty library liaisons; university development personnel; centers for the book; museums; literacy agencies; health agencies; local community groups; and international affiliates.

Engaging partners

The ways in which partnerships are created are as varied as the partners themselves. Respondents reported that partnerships are initiated both formally and informally, and at different organizational levels, both inside and outside of the institution. At the individual level, opportunities to build connections often occur with a new job. Joining a different organization allows incoming personnel to take an unencumbered look at longstanding practice and policy. As a newcomer learns to navigate the work environment and to build personal and professional networks, prospects for partnering increase. One library head related that, prior to accepting a new appointment, he was informed that the relationship between the college and his library was nonexistent. Once hired, he decided that ‘One of the things I wanted to do early on was to develop some relationships with the college. At first my goal was to introduce myself and start to build communications and bridges between the two units.’ Fortuitously, his arrival also coincided with the arrival of a new dean for the college. The two arranged to meet and, as he relates, ‘She was new and talked about some of her goals for the college, and I talked about my goals for the library, and it seemed that our goals were very much in alignment in terms of what we wanted to do.’

In some cases, informal or personal individual relationships lead to alliances. Interviewees reported that informal conversations in the hallways or conversations over cups of coffee often allow for spontaneous and open exchanges. In one case, a shared personal interest in Second Life sparked a unique opportunity. A professor ‘had a whole [Second Life] island he wasn’t using, so he worked with us to allow students and faculty to check out a plot of land for the year. Instead of circulating books, the library was able to distribute “virtual real estate.” ‘ Partnerships can also be born out of frustration. One dean recalled meeting with an Arts and Sciences Library committee:

The eventual result was a productive partnership between academic departments and a library school.

In other collaborations, library personnel were not the instigators. All interview participants provided examples of other units and groups that approached the library for help. At one university, an instructor working in the university’s writing center approached the head of reference, asking if librarians would be interested in assisting with writing support. ‘They were understaffed at the time, and they saw us as a natural partner,’ the dean reported. She solicited volunteers from among the library faculty, and ultimately several librarians offered to undergo training and became writing center tutors.

Many collaborative efforts are a direct result of systematic assessment such as annual evaluations, LibQual + surveys,² strategic plans, accreditation reviews and quality enhancement plans (QEPs), and yearly ARL and Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) reports. Environmental scans, ad hoc usability studies and focus groups also lead to partnering opportunities. Through strategic planning and evaluation, library leadership often sets future direction (Crowther and Trott, 2004).

On rare occasions, collaborations ‘come down from on high’ as top administrators commit libraries to partnerships with little (or nonexistent) consultation or planning. In one instance, a large corporation contacted the president of a university, indicated that they could no longer support their large corporate archive, and asked if the school would be interested in acquiring the collection as a gift. The president readily accepted, not fully understanding the resources necessary to make the material available to the public. In another example, representatives of a discipline-specific college contacted a university’s president and college deans, revealed that they would be closing their library, and offered the university their entire collection. Top-level administration quickly agreed to do so, not considering the space, processing, and personnel hours necessary to integrate over 300,000 titles into an existing collection.

Sustaining partners

All successful and sustained partnerships are characterized by common strategic elements: shared missions, complementary skills for mutual benefit, strong communication, and organizational structures. A shared mission or vision is essential (Wagner and Muller, 2009a, 2009b). Universities and academic libraries already have common goals, including scholarship, research, teaching, recruitment, and student success (Dickie and Dickie, 2009). For example, one study participant reported that her university identified retention as a major challenge to the school’s success. One of the ways in which they decided to address the issue was to focus on the advising process for undergraduates. The head of Student Advising contacted the library dean and asked if librarians might be interested in serving as student advisors. Five library personnel, including the dean, volunteered. In addition to participating in the campus-wide mission to improve retention rates, librarians ‘learned so much more about barriers to student success.’ At the same institution, the staff of the writing center, physically located within the library, approached the dean and ‘asked if the librarians would be interested in doing more with writing support.’ Having just completed a study, the library had already identified that students were ‘struggling with what they [the students] thought was a research problem when it turned out to be a writing problem, or vice versa.’ Librarians and writing center tutors participated in cross training, so that those working in the center could assist with both writing and research. ‘All students need to do is to acknowledge that they need help with their paper and … we have the right people in the room to help them.’ This writing center collaboration exemplifies shared mission and illustrates yet another key partnering element, namely that of complementary skills: those ‘strengths that complement your joined forces … and allow [partners] to accomplish together what could not be done separately’ (Wagner, 2009).

While developing a teaching and learning center, another university library leveraged complementary staff resources by placing the education and outreach librarian’s office within the center. ‘We wanted to bring a broader development viewpoint to information literacy and outreach.’ This provided an opportunity for librarians to share their expertise and teach a number of the center’s programs, including sessions addressing copyright issues and plagiarism. ‘We were invited to participate in a lot of the programming for faculty about improving teaching,’ the respondent reported. Conversely, librarians are attending teacher development offerings and improving their teaching skills (Jacobsen, 2001).

All interviewees pointed to common missions and complementary strengths as essential to successful partnerships. They expressed the importance of reaching out and discovering partners’ goals, and recognizing where library goals ‘converge.’ One library head characterized the situation this way: ‘[Missions] need to at least overlap in a classic Venn diagram way. There may be things to the right that you don’t care about, and there may be things to the left that they don’t care about. But wherever they intersect, they have to intersect.’

As with any endeavor, communication among partners is vital (Mohr and Spekman, 1994; Rigsbee, 2009). In the early stages of a partnership, it is essential to prevent misunderstandings that may derail the partnership from fully developing or that may commit it to failure down the road. One library head strongly advocated talking with high-level staff to assure ‘buy-in from administration’. To reach administrators, the head also offered this sage advice: ‘A very important group not to overlook when you’re trying to form partnerships are those that control the calendar.’ Relationships with those ‘at the top’ are necessary for future collaborations. ‘Once I established connection with the top administrators and became a partner … that really cascaded down into many other areas.’

Communication with faculty is equally important and often challenging. ‘Librarians need to be aware that faculty often feel more of an alliance to their specific discipline.’ Faculty tend to be ‘very protective’ of themselves and are under pressure to publish, acquire funds, and demonstrate teaching acumen. Librarians must articulate an immediate benefit to faculty, ‘making sure that the faculty understands that you understand them.’ Adding to the challenge is faculty perception of how the library is used. Faculty may be the group least likely to use the library, sending ‘their graduate students to the library or they access information electronically’; they may not realize that ‘graduate students and undergrads are using the library very heavily.’ Faculty may also assume that all users navigate the library the same way they do. Librarians must be able to convey how different constituencies are using library resources and services.

The communication loop can become difficult when working with multiple partners. One library director’s experience highlights the challenge. ‘You have people working on different schedules and people that have different organizations and internal communications mechanisms,’ he explains. The issue then becomes one of timing, assuring the message is consistent and shared with all partners concurrently. He contends, ‘If someone hears through the grapevine about a change, that is always more disturbing than if there is direct communication from the leaders at the institution. Sometimes, and for very good reasons, one institution might hear later than another, and we know that is very bad for the process.’ Partnerships require careful attention to regular and meaningful communication (Dickie & Dickie, 2009).

One central aspect of communication is listening. Through active listening, librarians can ‘learn the culture’ of their partners. Asking ‘What do you care about?’ and ‘What are your interests?’ goes a long way toward negotiating across organizational cultures. One assistant university librarian described how difficult this can be, even among partners in one’s own home institution. Working with his Office of Information Technology on the development of an information commons, the library director discovered that the service cultures were different. ‘We viewed OIT as a nine-to-five [service model],’ he explained. ‘They did have some students that worked in the evening answering e-mail or filling toner. We were more open, taking questions all the time, working all the time. .’ The implication was that student needs could not always be met during traditional ‘business’ hours. Another library dean has all library partners sign a service standards policy designed to outline the libraries’ vision for service and engage partners in the goal of sharing that standard. The agreement references the strategic plan, stating that the library is seeking partners who share a commitment to use ‘its human resources, technology, and physical facilities to provide responsive library services and collections in support of the instructional, research, and outreach activities of the students, faculty, and staff of the … University.’ The document goes on to address hours, accessibility, and space utilization. The policy is helpful in initial conversations with partners and is a document both parties review periodically to keep the partnership on track.

To communicate successfully, ‘partners must acknowledge boundaries, be respectful and fair, give due praise, and articulate appropriate criticism’ (Stein, 2009). Libraries must be forthright in expressing needs as well as understanding other perspectives. As one dean said, ‘You need not be afraid to put your own interest on the table.’ Another dean’s communication strategy is to ‘Try to anticipate what the issues are going to be and come up with solutions that address those issues.’ Still another dean reiterated, ‘We’re a service organization that wants to help and support people, so we’re not quite so used to speaking up and saying what we want for ourselves.’ Three administrators stressed the importance of a willingness to say ‘no’. There are times when saying ‘no’ ‘is the right thing to do,’ according to one. Another library director allowed that when ‘saying no’ occurred, the library should be prepared to ‘figure out an alternative.’ Even when an alternative solution is not possible, the library must try to ‘emphasize the positive.’

Yet another key element for successful collaborations is organizational structure (Wildridge et al., 2004). All partners must have a clear understanding of what one administrator called ‘the nuts and bolts’ of the collaboration. All involved must have a clear understanding of their role and function (Crowther, 2004). Four interviewees reported using a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) to help accomplish this goal. Even among the four, there was a range of responses with respect to the complexity and ongoing importance of MoUs. For one library head, the MoU ‘wasn’t written with specifics in the content. It was not written as a contract, but as something a little more general. I would say that we have not revised it, but it is still in place.’ At the other end of the spectrum, an assistant university librarian’s MoU ‘outlines the teamwork, the governance; it spells out who does what, how we are going to collaborate, the workflow; and [it] is reviewed every year.’ He also suggested that ‘regular review [of the MoU] as a collective body’ would not only remind all involved of the goals of the partnership, but, as people left or took on new duties, would provide others with the background of the partnership and assist them in joining in the ongoing conversation.

Partnering skills

What skills are required to traverse partnership pathways in the twenty-first-century library? When asked to compose a job description for prospective employees, all interviewees indicated that strong verbal and written communication skills, as discussed above, were absolutely essential. All would also require that applicants demonstrate knowledge of how academic libraries work. ‘Understanding of the academic institution and the academic environment and culture of faculty’, one dean said, ‘is critical.’ Given the rapidity of change, flexibility and adaptability were also valued as essential job requirements, attributes necessary to transform a ‘conservative profession’ and one ‘resistant to change.’ One dean noted that ‘as a group we are precise and careful’ and that librarians in general tend to be meticulous, preferring prolonged and detailed planning. The dean suggests the profession no longer has ‘the luxury of time, of dotting every i and crossing every t. Not everything can be perfect.’ New professionals must be willing to take risks and modify their ‘core activity’ as needs dictate. Other requisites, perhaps not typically written into a traditional job advertisement, included ‘enthusiasm,’ ‘interest,’ and the ability to be ‘positive and encouraging.’ Possessing a ‘sociability factor’ and ‘personality – the way they interact with colleagues on all levels – staff, administrators, faculty, and other librarians,’ were deemed desirable. Finally, five interview participants believed prospective hires should possess ‘salesmanship’ skills as they would repeatedly be required to act as a ‘salesman’ and ‘an advocate for cooperation and collaboration.’

Positions themselves may need to be structured differently. The library administrators interviewed for this study all envisioned non-traditional, blended positions. ‘You’re not really in reference, you’re not in circulation, and you’re not in technical services,’ said one. ‘You’re free to work with everybody and take on projects as they go.’ Titles might also be transformed – outreach and user experience positions may not follow the traditional distance education model but become dedicated to ‘reaching out for partnerships in a programming way.’

One administrator commented that hierarchal roles often ‘get in the way’ of true partnerships and participation. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re a librarian or a library assistant. If you want to participate, we will find a way to make use of you.’ Another dean advocated joint appointments and reporting lines as well as the formation of ‘cross-groups.’ These ‘“cross-teams” … with overlapping memberships … [provide] cross-fertilization in the ways teams work and people are placed. Administrators may be working on more than one project, and working with very different constituencies. [This configuration allows for] a combination of expertise and perspective.’

Future partners

Looking ahead to future trends, a majority of interview participants noted omnipresent economic factors as driving partnerships today. ‘The economic downturn has impacted [many] for the first time,’ noted one. ‘It is the world we live in and it is going to be the world we continue to live in,’ said another. One dean suggested that ‘Libraries have always recognized partnerships. The economic situation has really catapulted many of our libraries into action in terms of making major changes – because they have to.’ Another dean viewed the current economic situation as a ‘mixed blessing,’ allowing partners an opportunity for ‘coming together and pooling our resources.’

Despite economic uncertainty, when asked to predict future partnering opportunities, all nine interviewees cited continued collaborations with university information technology/computing services. In addition, all of them commented on the significant impact of computing and digitization on potential technology partnerships (Wang & Lim, 2009; Lynch, 2005; Gold, 2003). Cloud computing, digital collections and repositories, next-generation catalogs, open access scholarly publication, open source integrated library systems, and other open source projects were highlighted by those interviewed. One respondent provided an example of cooperative software development involving two institutions, geographically removed, that worked jointly to create a specialized archival application. Their success led the Mellon Foundation to support and provide funding for the original project partners to merge with another, similar program that had been developed by yet another institution. The inclusion of functionalities from both software packages will provide broader appeal to a larger constituency.

New relationships are also being formed with proprietary vendors (Bell, 2002). In the past, libraries served as beta testers for emerging commercial products. More recently, vendors are contacting libraries directly for product ‘ground floor’ development and are utilizing the libraries’ materials and metadata. This provides libraries with an opportunity to be on the front lines of development and to take advantage of the latest technology with economic support from the partner. For one administrator, this type of cooperative venture ‘gave people a chance to experiment with a new technology that they wouldn’t have had an opportunity to [do so],’ and ‘opened up a conversation among the library staff’ regarding today’s information environment. Another benefit to the library was a ‘better window into how a commercial entity assesses products.’

In addition to technology, a majority of administrators focused on creating better partnering models for research libraries. These included university-wide coordination of research among disciplines and greater integration of the research process (Marcus et al., 2007). One library head acknowledged that in most institutions ‘there is no coordination among differing research centers, or individual researchers, on campus,’ yet the library is a ‘natural place’ for interdisciplinary research. ‘The library [could] position itself as the center of interdisciplinarity at the university,’ he went on. ‘Let faculty members throughout the university know that the library is a place where they can come together and where librarians can be the bridge between faculty in different disciplines and help foster interdisciplinary efforts.’ Moreover, these interdisciplinary connections need not be limited by institutional boundaries. One library head envisions an interdisciplinary project that would engage local GIS environmental experts and bring them together with ‘people from geography, history, the institute for the arts and humanities’ to design a project that would focus on ‘preserving and celebrating culture in the state.’

In terms of the research process, one administrator suggested that ‘libraries tend to see themselves as supporting research. [I would] really like to see us becoming more of a partner in the process.’ Another advocated that libraries should be part of the ‘entire life cycle of the research process.’ Libraries are often left out of any extramural funding opportunities, and, as a result, monies are spent on materials that few will use. By being part of the funding process, libraries would be able to coordinate resources and ensure that materials are available to benefit other academic researchers and students. When more fully involved with the scholarly process at the individual level, librarians are able to lend their subject expertise, understanding of research methodology and knowledge of vast information resources to the researcher.

Other future collaborations will focus on institutional consortia as they begin to transform traditional library functions and units. Cooperative borrowing is evolving into cooperative collection management initiatives that ‘provide broad access without every institution buying all the same things.’ Unable to purchase multiple copies of texts, academic libraries are creating ‘shared reliance for preservation copies of materials both digital and print.’ One library head wondered, ‘Does it make sense for all of us to a buy a new encyclopedia that costs ten thousand dollars. . Are there ways we could share the cost of various things?’ He also suggested that perhaps collection development could be accomplished by individual institutions building collections in specific areas: ‘So, could X buy the major resources in marketing, and Y buy the major resources in management? Then we could share those resources.’ Another dean reported that such a project is already under way. Among his cohorts, ‘We are looking at a cooperative collection development project that indicates our collections are seen as one collection, and we are trying to eliminate duplication as much as possible, but, knowing that there will be duplication … we want to make sure that it’s thoughtful duplication.’ The partners are creating ‘a shared print depository where we keep one copy of material.’ Technical services are being restructured as well. A consolidation of technical services within Five Colleges (University of Massachusetts – Amherst, Smith College, Mt. Holyoke, Amherst College, and Hampshire College) will reorganize all cataloging and processing into a single unit (ALA Direct, November 2009). Columbia University and Cornell University have formed a ‘separate service entity’ which will consolidate collection development, acquisitions, and processing between the two schools. (CR&L News, November 2009).

In today’s global society, international partnering and ‘global citizens’ are gaining more focus (Hammond, 2009; Long, 2001). Colleges and universities are committed to global initiatives, including international research collaborations and reciprocal teaching appointments. The administrators in our study reported that ‘researchers are actually using materials from all over the world’ and that many of their topics are ‘worldwide in nature.’ This international emphasis extends to college students as well, as higher education stresses the importance of second language acquisition and participation in study abroad programs (Reimers, 2009; Moreno-Lopez et al., 2008). Libraries, too, have been forging global alliances. One dean was contacted by an alumna, who in turn had been contacted by a former library science student. The library student was actively seeking assistance for his university library in Africa. The library had received funding from the Carnegie Foundation and needed a partner who had experience ‘with the application of technology to library services.’ In addition to creating an efficient interlibrary loan service between the two schools, the American librarians traveled to Africa to offer training on information literacy and instruction; the dean also visited and offered seminars on leadership and emerging trends in librarianship. Soon, the American library began helping the African library digitize their primary, and rare, source materials. The dean reported: ‘In many ways, working with international partners allows them to benefit from our previous experience. They can really leap over some of the steps we took in our evolution. For example, the ability to go digital with information, without worrying about some of the steps we took with our print collection, is positive.’ In addition to the resource sharing, the exchange was ‘rich’ despite ‘big challenges with connectivity and the Internet. . The human connection was extremely valuable.’ As librarians exchanged ideas, they also learned about one another’s country and culture and came away with a deeper understanding and respect for one another.

Today’s libraries do indeed have global reach. One dean states, ‘Librarians all over the world are dealing with the same issues, and share the same professional values.’ For academic libraries to be viable in the twenty-first century, they must exhibit openness and a willingness to form partnerships. They must also have a basic understanding of the elements that will ensure these partnerships are successful. ‘The theme of partnership is critical to the success of the twenty-first-century library; we are not working in isolation,’ noted one respondent. All interviewed shared the same outlook, and, as one dean so aptly stated: ‘Libraries cannot exist as stand-alone agencies any longer. We have to work with other groups, whether they are other library groups, or other groups on-or off-campus, who have a shared set of interests. It is just impossible to not look at partnerships and be successful.’

Bibliography