Laurie Morrison

Laurie Morrison is the Humanities Librarian at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. Her responsibilities include liaison, collection development and instruction in Spanish, Italian and French. She pursued her interest in faculty/librarian collaboration during her two co-op terms at the University of Guelph while completing her MLIS at the University of Western Ontario. During library school Laurie became an avid knitter and in the 'post library school' months, Laurie discovered the joys of Yoga and mediation practice although she admits that enlightenment is not within her grasp.

Collaborate with a librarian: What motivates faculty?

Laurie Morrison

session 2c / Thursday, May 11 / 1:30 - 3:00 pm

Current research finds that faculty believe research skills to be an important component of undergraduate education. They also report that undergraduates' skills in this area are low. Why then is there a low rate of faculty/librarian collaboration? Why are some faculty eager to collaborate with librarians in information literacy initiatives while for other faculty our efforts have little impact? How can we best approach faculty when presenting information literacy instruction? These questions and more will be discussed during this presentation which reports on a qualitative study exploring the reasons why faculty collaborate with librarians. Sixteen participants interviewed in the fall of 2004 from a broad base of disciplines at the University of Guelph discussed their use or in some cases non-use of librarian-led library research instruction. This research reveals what faculty themselves report as their motivation to assist their students' research skills development. This is powerful knowledge for librarians to have when negotiating and partnering with faculty.