Ms Information writes “News from the University of Wales Bangor in the UK. senior management no longer feel that subject librarians / academic liaison librarians are needed in the modern academic library. They have made restructuring proposals which include removing all bar one of the subject librarians and a tier of the library management, including the Head of Bibliographic Services. The university management thinks that technology has ‘deskilled’ literature searching. As far as I know, this proposal is unprecedented in the United Kingdom.
In essence, there will remain 4 professional librarians serving a ‘research-led’ university of 8,000 plus FTEs and with 8 library sites. These will be the university librarian, cataloguing librarian, acquisitions librarian and Law librarian.
Has anything like this happened anywhere that you know of? If so, what have been the effects?
Ms Information writes “News from the University of Wales Bangor in the UK. senior management no longer feel that subject librarians / academic liaison librarians are needed in the modern academic library. They have made restructuring proposals which include removing all bar one of the subject librarians and a tier of the library management, including the Head of Bibliographic Services. The university management thinks that technology has ‘deskilled’ literature searching. As far as I know, this proposal is unprecedented in the United Kingdom.
In essence, there will remain 4 professional librarians serving a ‘research-led’ university of 8,000 plus FTEs and with 8 library sites. These will be the university librarian, cataloguing librarian, acquisitions librarian and Law librarian.
Has anything like this happened anywhere that you know of? If so, what have been the effects?We are in a consultation period that lasts until 25th February and any evidence we can gather to help us in our fight against these proposals would be warmly welcomed. If you would like to receive a copy of the consultation document please reply to Angela Jones-Evans ([email protected]).
Letters / E-mails of opposition to the decision, and support for those affected would also be welcome. They can be addressed to:
Dr Kevin Mundy
Senior Assistant Registrar
University of Wales Bangor
College Road
Bangor
Gwynedd
LL57 2DG
E-mail: [email protected]
and importantly should also be copied to:
Angela Jones-Evans
Head of Information Support Group
Unievrsity of Wales Bangor
Main Library
College Road
Bangor
Gwynedd
LL57 2DG
E-mail: [email protected]”
Shape of Things to Come
I wonder how long it will take for this idea to reach our shores. It is very disheartening to see that our colleagues in the UK have to bring proof of librarians’ role in education. If we are not careful and properly demonstrate our place in formal and informal education some university or college will also eliminate reference librarians as a budget cut. We need to present our role clearly to the American public on a local level as well as through national professonal organizations such as ALA. If our colleagues and organizations spend too much time on causes such as fighting the FBI, allowing free access to materials that are not age appropriate then someone may think that we are not vital. Wouldn’t it be better if people using the public library understood how we help them gain access to materials and information literacy instead of making conflict. It is much harder to eliminate a professional that proves their importance on a daily basis than one who is bringing agenda items and causes to the library and suing the library as a platform for political causes. If we are not careful someone with support will make us irrelevant.