Liaison Toolkit

This toolkit was created to support various activities performed by liaison librarians and subject selectors at the University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press. These librarians may work with faculty and students in their assigned departments and programs in the following ways:
 

• Serve as formal contacts to academic departments and programs within the University’s eight colleges and to specific student populations (e.g., first-year students);
   
• Maintain knowledge of information sources and research methodologies, trends in scholarship within their field(s), and curricular and research interests and needs within the department(s) they serve;
   
• Develop Library collections, both print and electronic, to support teaching, learning, and research;
   
• Provide subject specific research support for faculty and students in a variety of settings (e.g., email, library service desks, office consultations, workshops);
   
• Promote information literacy and provide discipline-specific instruction in classroom settings;
   
• Serve as a resource for information relating to scholarly communication, open access, open educational resources and other publishing-related topics;
   
• Develop online research guides, tutorials and other instructional content to inform faculty and students of pertinent research resources;
   
• Keep abreast of evolving academic and research programs and develop collections and services to support these programs;
   
• Collaborate with faculty on issues pertaining to digital scholarship and research data management.
   

Individual liaisons' and selectors' responsibilities vary greatly and reflect the changing needs of both the Library organization and the community it serves. The informational resources and personal benchmarking tools in each of these sections are intended to be consulted, applied, and adapted according to staff members' specific needs in consultation with their supervisors.

Review Schedule

This guide will be reviewed annually by volunteers from the selectors meeting group, led by the group facilitator. An ad hoc working group will identify required corrections or updates to the guide and complete or delegate the work as needed. The next review is due in the summer of 2022. To suggest revisions or additions, please contact Kaitlyn Tanis (kltanis@udel.edu).