Academic Library Advocacy Toolkit: Employment Status

Academic Librarian Faculty Status: CLIPP #47 contains a thorough literature review and bibliography, analysis and discussion of survey results, and sample criteria, policies, and guidelines for appointment, promotion, and tenure for librarians with and without faculty status.

No other group of employees in higher education has occupied quite the same ambivalent status on campus as librarians. The debate over granting librarians the same rights and responsibilities as faculty has generated a substantial body of literature over the years. Most of this research has tended to focus on either a mix of institutional sizes or on large universities, with a surprising dearth of studies of smaller institutions. The results of the survey reported in CLIPP #47 fills this gap, as well as offering practical information and sample tenure and promotion documents and policies.

Academic Libraries and the Academy is a thorough collection of best practices, lessons learned, approaches, and strategies of how librarians, library professionals, and others in academic libraries around the world are successfully providing evidence of their contributions to student academic success and effectively demonstrating their library’s value and worth to institutional administrators and stakeholders. Forty-two case studies over two volumes—Volume One and Volume Two—are divided into four sections, from beginning assessment work through assessment activities that are more difficult to measure and generally more time- and resource-intensive. Each study provides practicable ideas and effective strategies for all levels of experience, assessment skills, stages of implementation, and access to resources

Emerging Human Resource Trends in Academic Libraries presents the collective wisdom of human resource librarians and administrators who have been in the forefront of practicing and applying the human resource principles in academic libraries.

The book is divided into five parts:
1. Part I focuses on the present academic library environment and the unique human resource challenges that can be found there.
2. Part II looks at the role of LIS education in preparing Masters level librarians to work within academic libraries and beyond.
3. Part III examines how human resource departments in organizations can continue education beyond the degree for professionals and other staff.
4. Part IV is concerned with how academic libraries show their value to the parent institution.

See also Chapter: Challenging Promotion and Tenure Traditions in Academic Libraries (https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/listing.aspx?styp=ti&id=37016)

Faculty-Librarian Collaborations collects chapters, case studies, and lesson plans detailing why these collaborations are important, how to develop and execute them, specific lesson plans, and ideas for assessing their effectiveness.

Leading Change in Academic Libraries is a collection of 20 change stories authored by academic librarians from different types of four-year institutions. Librarians tell the story firsthand of how they managed major change in processes, functions, services, programs, or overall organizations using John Kotter’s Eight-Stage Process of Creating Major Change as a framework for examining change at their institutions, measuring their successes and areas for improvement, and determining progress.

A 12-week program designed for teams from institutions planning any type of organizational change.

The ACRL Diversity Alliance program unites academic libraries committed to increasing the hiring pipeline of qualified and talented individuals from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. By working together and thinking more broadly, ACRL Diversity Alliance institutions will help diversify and thereby enrich the profession.

The ACRL Impactful Scholarship and Metrics Task Force was formed primarily to create a framework for the measurement and evaluation of academic librarian scholarship. The framework is designed to address gaps between current scholarly evaluation practices and impactful scholarly activities within academic librarianship, including ways to measure and evaluate the impact of a wide range of research outputs.

This statement was prepared by the Joint Committee on College Library Problems, a national committee representing the Association of College and Research Libraries, the Association of American Colleges (now the Association of American Colleges and Universities), and the American Association of University Professors. (Reaffirmed April 2018)

Academic Librarian status varies widely within community colleges, baccalaureate, masters and doctoral granting institutions. ACRL supports faculty rank, status, and tenure for librarians but recognizes that not all academic institutions provide faculty status to their librarians. This document seeks to unify standards and guidelines for the faculty status of academic librarians, affirming ACRL’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion, regardless of the type of institution employing librarians. Faculty status may be recognized either within the library or across the institution.

Libraries in higher education are increasingly required to demonstrate their value and document their contributions to overall institutional effectiveness. The Standards for Libraries in Higher Education is a framework for library planning and assessment that can be used for a variety of circumstances including annual planning, program review, and accreditation self-study. Through presentation, discussion, and group activities, learn how to use the Standards to communicate your library’s impact.