My background and goals

I came to librarianship from a background in biology, and the years I spent teaching and conducting research in that field have profoundly influenced my approach to my new profession. I "grew up," professionally speaking, in academic environments, and I continue to be drawn to these environments as I map my future career. A years-long association with science has meant that I emphasize intellectual rigor and that I am skeptical (in the philosophic sense of the word) in my approach to knowledge. Like most scientists, I have a strong empirical bent, which means, among other things, that when I am confronted with a problem or question, my first impulse is to collect data about it. And, my teaching philosophy is based upon a foundation of fostering critical thinking skills in students.

My science background has provided me with several key perspectives that inform my professional practice as a librarian. I have been a biology undergrad, a master's student in biology, and a researcher, which means that I have a first-hand understanding of how these groups use scientific information and the information seeking skills that they need as they progress in the life sciences. I have participated in all stages of the data cycle, from applying for funding to developing data collection protocols to collecting data to publishing results, and I know first-hand how the exigencies of bringing in funding and pumping out publications can lead to the deprioritization of other key aspects of the data cycle, such as data management and preservation. And, I understand the challenges that teachers of science face at the post-secondary level, how difficult it can be to inspire students more accustomed to rote memorization and passive learning to incorporate the very underpinnings of scientific inquiry - observation and the critical evaluation of evidence - into their own approaches to learning and discovery.

I plan to combine my past and present vocations by working as a subject librarian serving one or more academic life sciences departments at a research university. My ideal position would involve responsibilities in three areas. First, I would like to help undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers in the sciences to further their understanding of the wise use of scientific information and the changing landscape of scholarly communication. Second, I would like to assist in the provision of services to support research, particularly in the areas of data management and preservation. And third, I'd like to be active in the development and promotion of open access models of scholarly publishing. My interest in these areas of librarianship stems from my background, as described above, as well as the professional identity that I've developed through my work at SLIS and my on-the-job experiences that I have acquired thus far.

My professional identity and philosophy

Although I fully expect that my professional identity will change and grow as I advance in my career, currently I feel that my work as an academic science librarian will be profoundly influenced by a few key principles. I strongly believe in the importance of collaboration between librarians and faculty. Librarians are well placed to provide critical support to university teaching and research missions. However, in order to do this, they must first forge strong ties, based on mutual understanding and respect, with faculty. This may involve breaking down some preconceptions. Science faculty may believe that academic librarians have a limited understanding of the scientific process, and of their own needs as teachers and as researchers. Faculty may also not be fully aware of the roles that librarians can play in supporting teaching and research. Yang (2000), in a survey of faculty perceptions of a library liaison program, found that faculty primarily viewed liaison librarians as points of contact when problems arose in access to library resources, and moreover that many faculty were unaware of such fundamental services as library orientation for new graduate students. Librarians need to demonstrate that 1) they understand the information landscape that faculty work in, 2) they're willing to enter into a dialog about the support that faculty need, and 3) the services they can provide extend beyond the merely custodial. In addition to demonstrating our value to faculty, library professionals in academia also need to avoid falling into the trap of doing all of the talking and none of the listening. I recently attended a panel discussion wherein one of the participants, Leslie Delserone, Agriculture Librarian at the University of Minnesota Libraries, described a dialog that she initiated with her faculty. She did not ask "What can librarians do to help you?", but simply, "What do you need to do your research?" By couching the question in these terms, Leslie was able to solicit ideas from faculty that extended beyond traditional preconceptions about the roles of librarians (Panel discussion, Extending the Data Curation Curriculum to Practicing LIS Professionals, DigCCurr Conference, April 3, 2009). Stoddart and colleagues (2006) advise new liaison librarians to listen to their faculty "as much or more than you talk." I intend to bring excellent communication and collaboration skills to my work in supporting the teaching and research missions of my institution.

I also believe that the cultivation of critical thinking about scientific information is foundational to the education of students and fledgling researchers in the life sciences. The Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards (2009) provide an excellent set of benchmarks for which to aim in efforts to foster critical thinking about information by undergraduates. The ACRL standards emphasize the importance not only of successfully finding information, but of critically evaluating information, analyzing and synthesizing information for specific purposes, and understanding the provenances and legitimate uses of information. For students in the sciences I would additionally emphasize a few particulars: a recognition of the differences between peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed sources of information, the role of scientific discourse as it is manifested in the peer-reviewed literature in the advancement of scientific knowledge, and the ability to interpret the ways in which findings published in the peer-reviewed literature contribute to the body of knowledge on that subject as a whole. The cultivation of these skills is not something that can be accomplished by library professionals alone, which again points to the importance of developing good collaborative relationships with faculty. Efforts by librarians to teach critical information skills to undergraduates and new graduate students may be wasted if they aren't effectively incorporated into existing departmental curricula - if instruction efforts occur in a vacuum, students will fail to see the relevance of what they are learning. And, by their very nature, critical thinking skills cannot be developed if students are cast into passive learning roles - the incorporation of "brains-on" activities are crucial to the success of information literacy curricula. I intend to collaborate with faculty and teaching staff to help students of the sciences to develop the skills they need to be critical users of information.

I emphasize supporting decisions with data. The hunches, impressions, and anecdotal evidence that I accumulate regarding what goes on in my workplace have their value, but they are starting points rather than ending points - they inform the development of testable hypotheses about the needs of my patrons and the effectiveness of my library's programs and services. In some cases, it may be sufficient to move ahead with decisions that are informed by the work of fellow professionals publishing in the library literature. In other cases it may be necessary for myself and colleagues to collect qualitative or quantitative data within our own institution, about our own patrons, to inform library decisions. The importance of the decision, and the time and resources available, to a certain extent may dictate the rigor that needs to be applied to data collection. A few months ago, I attended an online seminar entitled "The Quick, the Cheap, and the Insightful: Conducting Usability Tests in the Wild"(User Interface Engineering, 2009). The premise of seminar was that, although in an ideal world one would have infinite time and resources to develop impeccable protocols for usability testing, in practice we frequently face constraints that limit the scope of such projects. I was able to apply principles learned from the seminar to collect useful information regarding student interaction with an online tutorial I developed in my work at the UC Berkeley Bioscience Library, even though we were faced with a looming deadline for getting the tutorial online. I intend to continue to take an empirical approach to questions in my workplace by formally and informally collecting data to inform decisions.

I support access to and preservation of the products of scientific research, including both scientific publications and datasets. Ultimately, funding for scientific research activities in academia in the United States largely comes from monies collected from the public, yet convenient access to the bulk of research results is only available to those who are affiliated with institutions that are able to pay licensing fees to academic publishing companies. This means that researchers in smaller organizations, or in developing nations, can't readily access the literature they need to support their work. The open access publishing model, which generates income by charging authors (and authors' institutions) for publication rather than charging institutions for access, is gaining acceptance in the scholarly publishing world, but much work remains to be done in this arena. Issues surrounding the curation and sharing of datasets are also increasingly on the radar of academic communities. Again, the collection of scientific data is primarily funded by tax dollars, yet currently it is the norm that datasets may be disposed of by their collectors in whatever manner they see fit; frequently, datasets are lost after the collectors of the data publish their results and turn their attention to other projects. Although many researchers do recognize the value of preserving, and possibly sharing, their datasets, they may not realize that institutional and subject-based data repositories are available for this purpose, or may not know what to do in order to deposit their data in such an archive. Academic librarians can play a key role in promoting data curation activities within the scholarly community. I intend to foster the preservation and sharing of scientific resources by actively promoting open access publishing models and data curation initiatives.

In sum, I believe that librarianship is less about collections than services, and I think that this is especially true in academic libraries. As open access publishing models gain traction, digitization projects flourish, and interlibrary borrowing services become more efficient, the moats that delineate individual information collections are beginning to dry up. Academic communities no longer need information professionals to tend those moats (if they ever did), but what they do need are co-discoverers, guides in the increasingly complex mosaic of the information landscape. As the boundaries of information discovery expand beyond the traditional published record of the scholarly literature to include discourse found online, the location of new collaborators and funding sources, the identification of useful datasets, and much more, so do the services that will be required of information professionals working in academic environments. Along with this expansion comes the opportunity for us to continually demonstrate anew our relevance to the life of scholarship.

My contribution to the well-being of our communities

The work presented in this e-portfolio demonstrates my preparedness for upholding the principles that I set forth in my professional philosophy. Above, I discuss the importance of collaboration between faculty and library staff; in Competencies D, E, G, and N I present evidence of several fruitful collaborations I have participated in with fellow students. I discuss cultivation of critical thinking; in Competency K I present two library instruction sessions I have presented, one in-person and one online, in which I familiarize introductory biology students with the principles of understanding, finding, and evaluating information in the life sciences. I discuss data-based decision making; in Competency L I describe research I am currently conducting on the effectiveness of the aforementioned online class in helping students to achieve the desired learning outcomes, as well as a data collection protocol I developed to assess whether there are differences between instruction in chat and in-person reference interactions. I discuss access to and preservation of research products; in Competency N I present a poster that I gave at the Digital Curation Curriculum Conference, April 1-3, 2009, describing a temporary position I held at Cornell University helping researchers at Cornell Biological Field Station to document, share, and preserve a long-term ecological dataset by depositing it in a data repository. And, work presented in competencies A, B, and C demonstrate my perspective on the role academic libraries play within the larger context of the information profession and, most importantly, our society.

Academic institutions are crucial components of our communities. They prepare young people for their lives and careers by, ideally, teaching them how to think critically about the world around them. They provide institutional support for theoretical and applied research that advances the frontiers of human knowledge. They participate in activities related to the dissemination of this knowledge to our society at large. Timely and pertinent access to information, and the fostering of skills to select, synthesize, analyze, and evaluate information, are cornerstones to these pursuits. By working in an academic library, I contribute to an institution that has helped to preserve the continuity of scientific understanding ever since the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal expanded the library at Nineveh in the 8th century BC to support the work of scholars and the "education of future generations" (Rubin, 2004, p. 262). I contribute to an institution that bridges the present and the future by continually riding the cresting wave of scientific advancement. I contribute to an institution that prepares young scientists to begin their careers with a critical and discerning eye for high-quality scientific information, and to participate in the scholarly discourse that serves to advance our collective understanding of ourselves, our endeavors, and the world we live in. The evidence I present in this e-portfolio demonstrates my readiness to contribute to academic libraries, and through them, to our society as a whole.

References

Association of College and Research Libraries. (2009). Information literacy competency standards for higher education. Retrieved on 02/16/2009 from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency.cfm

Rubin, R. E. (2004). Foundations of Library and Information Science, 2nd ed. Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc., New York.

Stoddart, R. A., et al. (2006). Going boldly beyond the reference desk: practical advice and learning plans for new reference librarians performing liaison work. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 32(4), 419-427.

User Interface Engineering. (2009). The quick, the cheap, and the insightful: conducting usability tests in the wild. [virtual seminar by Dana Chisnell, recorded October 22, 2008]. Retrieved on April 18, 2009 from http://www.uie.com/events/virtual_seminars/wild/

Yang, Z. Y. (2000). University faculty's perception of a library liaison program: a case study. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 26(2), 124-128.