faculty/librarian expectations

This EDUCAUSE article on the changing information service needs of faculty, coming to me by way of Dan Cohen, points to a disconnect between faculty and librarian perceptions regarding the role of librarians.

The consultative role of the librarian in helping faculty in their research and teaching is viewed as an important function by most librarians, but most faculty members do not put the same emphasis on this role of the library.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't unpack this idea of a "consultative" role. I think that there are many new roles in academic libraries that we are experimenting with, and the consultative role is one of them, the institutional repository another. We need to try them and see how they work. But it is certainly not a forgone conclusion that they will work.

Most of the rest of the article discusses collections. No real surprises there.