The Invisible Librarian
A Librarian's Guide to Increasing Visibility and Impact
- 1st Edition - November 3, 2015
- Imprint: Chandos Publishing
- Author: Aoife Lawton
- Language: English
- Paperback ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 0 8 - 1 0 0 1 7 1 - 4
- eBook ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 0 8 - 1 0 0 1 7 4 - 5
The Invisible Librarian: A Librarian's Guide to Increasing Visibility and Impact provides insights into what many librarians are feeling, including questions such as "do they… Read more
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Request a sales quoteThe Invisible Librarian: A Librarian's Guide to Increasing Visibility and Impact provides insights into what many librarians are feeling, including questions such as "do they feel invisible?" and "How many times have they heard somebody say ‘but everything is on the Internet’?"
If you are a librarian struggling to find the best strategy for the future of the profession in a rapidly changing information environment, this book is for you. People don’t realize that librarians make information available and not just by search engine.
This book will make people think differently about librarians, making a case for their value and impact that is compelling, convincing, and credible. Given their versatility and knowledge, now is the time for librarians to become champions of the information age as they improve the visibility and impact of libraries to readers, to stakeholders, and in society. By the end of the book, librarians will have a Visibility Improvement Plan to guarantee future success.
- Provides strategies that librarians can use to raise their visibility
- Presents how successful librarians have made a positive impact
- Covers new techniques that measure current visibility amongst readers and key stakeholders
- Includes key guidance on how to implement a 10-step Visibility Improvement Plan
Librarians and information professionals, Library managers and administrators and students of Library & Information Science.
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Biography
- Preface
- Acknowledgement
- Introduction
- 1. Step into the shoes of a librarian
- Background
- Special librarian
- Notes
- 2. Case studies: Visibility of academic librarians and academic libraries
- Case study 1: subject librarian in engineering, mathematics, business, social science and philosophy working in reader services
- Case study 2: emerging technologies librarian working in an academic medical library
- Case study 3: liaison librarian working in an academic library
- Case study 4: systems librarian working in an academic library
- Case study 5: head of services at University of Eastern Finland Library/Kuopio University Hospital Medical Library
- Summary
- Notes
- 3. Case studies: Visibility of school librarians and school libraries
- Case study 6: school librarian in secondary (second-level) school for boys
- Case study 7: librarian working in a secondary school for boys and girls
- Case study 8: school librarian in secondary (second-level) school for girls
- Summary
- Notes
- 4. Case studies: Visibility of public libraries and public librarians
- Case study 9: county librarian at Wexford county council public libraries, Ireland, and a former president of the Library Association of Ireland (2011-2013)
- Case study 10: principal librarian information, advice and digital services and overall manager for Northamptonshire central library, United Kingdom
- Case study 11: librarian working at Dublin city public libraries, Ireland
- Case study 12: librarian working at Dublin city public libraries, Ireland
- Case study 13: information management and Kew librarian at Boroondara, Victoria, Australia
- Summary
- Notes
- 5. Case studies: Visibility of health science librarians and libraries
- Case study 14: librarian working in a palliative care setting
- Case study 15: clinical librarian working in UHL
- Case study 16: reference librarian working in a biomedical library that is part of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
- Case study 17: librarian working in a specialist health library
- Case study 18: e-resources librarian working at Exeter Health Library, which is the NHS library for the Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust Hospitals
- Summary
- Note
- 6. Case studies: Visibility of special librarians and special libraries
- Case study 19: librarian working independently as a knowledge management consultant and an information technology librarian at the State of Alaska Court Law Library
- Case study 20: librarian working as an information scientist in the Child and Family Agency
- Case study 21: Research officer working as an embedded librarian at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences
- Case study 22: corporate librarian working in a corporate setting
- Case study 23: librarian employed as a legal information manager
- Summary
- Note
- 7. State of play - measuring the current visibility of the librarian and library
- Introduction
- What is visibility?
- Stakeholder analysis
- Determining value
- School librarian - example of readers/users of school library service
- Hospital librarian - example of readers/users of hospital library service
- Public librarian - example of readers/users of public library service
- Academic librarian - example of readers/users of academic library service
- What the librarian does
- Prioritisation exercise: activities
- Visibility of the librarian
- Measuring your visibility according to your stakeholders
- How did you score?
- Root cause analysis
- Visibility of the library
- Library visibility to readers according to readers
- How did the library score?
- Management techniques for determining visibility - how are you going to get more visible?
- Positioning
- Information audit and skills audit
- Information audit
- Skills audit
- SWOT and PESTLE
- Measuring visibility, impact and value
- Measuring impact and value in academic libraries
- Measuring impact and value in public libraries
- Measuring impact and value in health science libraries
- Measuring impact and value in special libraries
- Measuring online visibility
- Branding
- Checklist for online access points where library brand/logo should be visible
- Checklist for online access points where the librarian should be visible
- Summary
- Notes
- 8. Visibility improvement plan (VIP)
- Introduction
- Let's get visible! v-i-s-i-b-i-l-i-t-y
- Reader charter
- Visibility checklist
- Notes
- 9. Strategies that work to improve the visibility, value and impact of the librarian and library
- Leadership and advocacy
- Librarians as leaders
- Examples from academic librarianship of increasing visibility, value and impact
- Examples from health librarianship of increasing visibility, value and impact
- Critical success factors for increasing visibility
- Online visibility - strategies that work
- Examples from school librarianship of increasing visibility, value and impact
- Examples from special librarianship of increasing visibility, value and impact
- Examples from public librarianship of increasing visibility, value and impact
- Visibility emergency kit
- Notes
- 10. Into the future: The future is now
- Libraries
- Neutral generalists
- Democracy
- A societal good
- Openness
- Change
- Trends
- The world is online
- Collective intelligence and collaboration
- Professional reputation
- Rise of smarts
- Evidence-based librarianship
- Fishing
- Power through collaboration
- Synthetic biology
- Space
- Recognition
- Robots
- Consumer choice
- The future
- Planning for the future
- Universal access to knowledge
- Values stay the same
- Notes
- Appendix 1
- References
- Index
- Edition: 1
- Published: November 3, 2015
- No. of pages (Paperback): 478
- No. of pages (eBook): 478
- Imprint: Chandos Publishing
- Language: English
- Paperback ISBN: 9780081001714
- eBook ISBN: 9780081001745
AL
Aoife Lawton
Aoife Lawton works at the Health Service Executive Regional Library & Information Service in Dr. Steevens Hospital, Dublin. She is Systems Librarian and is responsible for the coordination of electronic resources to health service employees throughout the region. She manages the national Irish health repository Lenus which collates research from over 130 health agencies in Ireland.
Affiliations and expertise
Systems Librarian, Health Service Executive Regional Library & Information Service,Dr. Steevens' Hospital, Dublin, IrelandRead The Invisible Librarian on ScienceDirect