Librarians in the Academic Ecosystem

Abstract

Much of what academic librarians do does not look like what ""faculty"" do—classic, stereotypical, tenure-track, classroom faculty. Instead, it looks like support work, or administration, or is invisible: all things that are distinctly not valued by classic faculty. Much of the research in library literature, the talk among academic librarians themselves, seems to center on benefits and privileges, and the distinctions are not based on faculty vs. librarian status but on other factors; for example, salaries for librarians, as for economists, English faculty and nursing instructors are mostly set by discipline and market conditions. It will be more productive for librarians to take a political and strategic perspective: with one overarching realization, and one focused goal. The realization is that the ""faculty"" role is itself diverse: it is not classic nor stereotyped nor even ""classroom"" in many cases. The variation within the group ""faculty"" is in many respects more significant than the variation between the groups ""faculty"" and ""librarians."" The focused goal is to seek the status that will place librarians in the decisions of which they should be part.