LIBRARY

The library is committed to the support of learning and teaching on campus. In collaboration with faculty and with the greater campus community, library staff help students develop a deep understanding of disciplinary research in preparation for assignments, for comps, and for their lives as perpetual learners. Toward these ends, liaison librarians have designed a robust program of reference, tailored classroom instruction, and individual student consultations, totaling several thousand interactions with students each year.

Each department has its own liaison librarian who specializes in the research methodologies and sources for that field of study (see http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/library/help/help/liaisons/). Department chairs can integrate their librarian into the life and culture of the department as appropriate. Librarians can provide the department and individual faculty members with an additional perspective on student research capacities at the departmental, course, and assignment levels.

Through ongoing selection of resources, faculty play a key role in building the library collection. A large share of the library acquisitions budget is sub-allocated by department for the purpose of faculty selection of materials in support of the curriculum. As chair, you will receive from the library in Fall term your department’s annual allocation, and regular updates on expenditures. If your library budget is large and your faculty colleagues are up-to-date on recent developments in their field, the acquisition of new materials may easily be parceled out to several individuals. But to avoid overspending and to maintain a balanced collection, it may be wise to designate someone in your department to be the liaison with the library. This person will be responsible for processing requests for books, periodicals, media, and datasets, keeping track of what money is left to be spent in the year, requesting (after receiving departmental advice) the dollar amount required by new programs or by the interests of a newly hired colleague, and taking care of any other library-related matters that might arise. This is an important job and can be time-consuming. Acting as library liaison might be a good way for a tenure-track faculty member (though not in the first year here) to become acquainted with library operations and your department’s holdings. The library sets aside $750 for each new tenure-track faculty member’s suggestions for acquisitions.

Every two years departments are asked to participate in reviewing journal subscriptions. The Collection Development staff is available to advise/assist you. They have prepared a useful overview of how departments participate in collection building. See: http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/library/for_faculty/faculty_working/collection_development/

Through its Athenaeum program, the library makes it easier for faculty to host visiting lecturers and hold public events on campus. As co-sponsor of events you may be planning, the library will handle many of the logistical details and provide a nice venue for smaller events (up to 60 people).

The library hosts and supports curricular-related exhibits. Often these exhibits are co-curated by students (individually or in groups), library staff, and faculty. Faculty may contact the Curator of Library Art and Exhibitions if they have an exhibit idea or are interested in designing class assignments based on student-curated exhibits.

The procedure for archiving of comps and honors papers is described at https://apps.carleton.edu/campus/doc/faculty_resources/department_chair_handbook/archiving_comps_and_honors_papers/.  Contact Carol Eyler (ceyler@carleton.edu) with questions on how the library, ITS and/or PEPS can help your department archive most of your department/program comps. 

Finally, to ensure quality information services and support, please inform the library of any new programmatic/curricular directions of the department.