---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 16:08:45 -0700
From: Mary Grenci <mgrenci@DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU>
Subject: Technical Services Librarians and the Teaching Mission--survey results

Here are the results of my survey on technical services librarians and the
teaching mission. Thanks to all of you who responded.

Mary

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total number of responses:  44
Number of responses which did not contain information appropriate for
  analysis:  5
Number of responses included in counts below:  39

Size of institutions:
        Large:  10
        Medium: 10
        Small:  19

Institutions where tech. serv. librarians are involved in teaching:  37
Institutions where tech. serv. librarians are not involved in teaching:  1
        (only subject specialists teach, and they are the only librarians
         with faculty status)
Institutions where tech. serv. librarians help plan sessions but do not
  actually teach:  1

Types of teaching that is done by tech. serv. librarians:
        Credit courses in library use:  4
        Credit courses in library science:  4
        Other credit courses:  5
        Bibliographic instruction:  29
        Computer and Internet:  14
        Database searching:  6
        OPAC use:  11
        Library orientation:  6
        Tours, etc.:  3
        Training of staff:  5
        Training of pub. serv. staff in use of the OPAC, MARC, etc.:  1

Teaching by tech. serv. librarians is voluntary:  21
Teaching by tech. serv. librarians is mandatory:  4
Number of respondents who resented being forced to teach:  1

Administration actively encourages tech. serv. librarians to teach:  8
Administration actively discourages tech. serv. librarians to teach:  1
Administration neither encourages or discourages participation:  3

Institutions where there is or was active resistance by pub. serv.
  librarians:  3

Reasons given for tech. serv. librarians involvement in teaching:

Teaching helps/enhances tech. serv. work:  8
Pub. serv. staff are overloaded with work:  4
Teaching gives another, more complete perspective on the user and how they
  seek information:  2
Tech. serv. librarians are better at teaching information literacy than
  are pub. serv. librarians
Catalogers are best suited to teaching the OPAC and library catalogs in
  general
Teaching enhances the visibility of tech. serv. librarians
The involvement of more librarians in teaching puts the library as a whole
  in a more positive light and enhances the library's reputation within
  the university community

Problems resulting from tech. serv. librarians teaching:

Tech. serv. work suffers and gets behind:  6
Tech. serv. librarians have to take on more work but are not given time in
  their schedule to do the work involved:  2
Friction results between depts. because pub. serv. staff do not
  support tech. serv. activities. They don't understand that tech. serv.
  work is also important and must be done in a timely manner.

General statements:

There is a prevailing view (among administrators and pub. serv.
  librarians) that tech. serv. librarians aren't real librarians if
  they are not also involved in pub. serv. work., but the reverse is not
  also true.

All of us benefit from serving patrons.

It's good to get exposure to the user's side of the catalog.

While most respondents said that teaching takes A LOT of time away from
  tech. serv. work, 2 people felt that teaching did not have much, if
  any, effect on their dept. or their workload.

The one respondent who specifically answered the question of why tech.
  serv. librarians would choose not to become involved in teaching, felt
  that this stemmed from 3 main issues: a lack of interest, a lack of
  time, and departmental priorities.

One respondent stressed that tech. serv. librarians don't have to actually
TEACH in order to be involved in the TEACHING MISSION.

---------------------------
Mary Grenci
Serials Catalog Librarian
Knight Library
1299 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1299
mgrenci@darkwing.uoregon.edu