Contribution to the Study of Academic Library Roles, Value, Identity

The findings of this research offer several points of value to the study of academic libraries and their relationship with constituents.

First, the categories of description articulated here may provide vocabulary and conceptual structure both to talk about a library’s offerings and to inquire about faculty perceptions in a way that ensures common understanding between faculty members and library administrators. For example, the Ithaka S+R survey of faculty perceptions (Housewright, et al., 2013a) puts forth six conceptions or experiences of the library to faculty and asks them to prioritize their relative importance: gateway (discovery service), buyer (providing content), archive

conceptions have something in common with the experiences revealed by this research, but they are not identical. Faculty members talked about enhancing their teaching and research activities while experiencing the library as content provider, as discovery, and as reading books – the categories which seem to most closely resemble Ithaka’s gateway, buyer, and archive conceptions. Therefore, while the survey designers have separated teaching and research support into discrete conceptions which may connote specific services or activities to the questioners, this research suggests that faculty members may think of these purposes as linked with roles like content provision. The categories of description identified in this thesis therefore provide some evidence base for designing surveys, questionnaires and other inquiries which employ meaning structures with the potential to be shared and understood similarly between those asking and those responding.

Second, the findings provide evidence of differences between faculty members and librarians in conceptions of library roles and value. Faculty members participating in this research did not provide any indication of experiencing the library in certain ways that are talked about among LIS practitioners and which were introduced in chapter two. One of these is as a platform for creation, sharing or publication of creative endeavour. Another is the library as a conduit for scholarly communications. A third is as a support or centre for research data management. In recent history, many libraries have begun to conceive a role for themselves as makerspaces (Bolt, 2014; Fisher, 2012), providing software, hardware, and other support for the design and production of intellectual output. No use, conception or awareness of such services or roles was expressed by any of the participants in this research, although these may be designed and targeted mainly for a different audience, such as students. Similarly, academic libraries have also begun to take on new roles in scholarly communications (Carpenter, et al., 2011), such as providing financial support to faculty to pay the article processing charges for open access publishing of scholarly works. However, participants in this research did not express any concept or experience of the library as being involved in scholarly communications or

publication beyond the discovery and access of already-published materials. Finally, new and future roles in research data management have been put forth (Corrall & Lester, 2013), services which again participants expressed no awareness of or conception about in this study.

However, such services do logically fit with expressed conceptions of the library as a center for information ethics and compliance with information regulations, as captured in the library as ethics category, since the openness and preservation of research data are increasingly included in funding mandates (Corrall & Lester, 2013). There are many possible reasons that these concepts or roles of the academic library, increasingly espoused by library practitioners, have failed to become established or take root in the minds of these participants. They could simply be too new; they may not be reflected in the services of the specific institutions represented in this research; they may exist but are not being communicated effectively; or they may exist but not be perceived as necessary or significant enough to these participants to come to mind in a conversation about the library. The absence of awareness is certainly evidence of conceptual gaps around what the library is and can do which may currently exist between faculty members and library practitioners. The implication is that there is work to do in terms of finding ways to bridge these gaps.

Third, the findings of this research do reveal some consistencies with prior research involving the role of the academic library. The most prevalent and basic way of experiencing the academic library for participants in this study was as a content provider, which is consistent with prior findings prioritizing this role (Nitecki & Abels, 2013; Housewright, 2013a). However, analysis of this role reveals what are possibly additional conceptual and perceptual gaps between librarians and faculty members in the context of the international branch campus. Library practitioners have characterized the content provision role of the library in IBCs as critically and uniquely valuable due to the lack of alternative providers in the foreign

environment (Green, 2013); however, participants in this study all described regularly accessing a wide range of alternative channels for content, including not only freely available content but also subscription-based or paid content via neighboring institutional and public libraries. One participant describing her access to materials from the branch campus stated:

“…it’s always possible to get it one way or another. And we have other libraries in the city. So I don’t feel disadvantaged in any way…” (Participant 5)

Therefore the role of the library as a content provider is still a significant role or identity but it sits alongside numerous other content channels available in the various information worlds of these faculty member participants.

In summary, the findings of this research reveal important differences in how the academic library may be experienced, perceived and talked about by faculty members in the branch campus context and by library practitioners and administrators. This finding has important practical ramifications around aligning these understandings to enable better service delivery and communications.