Technical Services Librarians with Public Services Responsibilities: How Do We Make This Work?

October 22-23, 2013

Hosted by Erin Boyd, Ruth Elder, and Laura Turner

Please join us for an e-forum discussion. It’s free and open to everyone!
Registration information is at the end of the message.

Each day, discussion begins and ends at:

Pacific: 7am – 3pm
Mountain: 8am – 4pm
Central: 9am – 5pm
Eastern: 10am – 6pm

Many technical services positions also include public services responsibilities. You may have known this when accepting the position or these responsibilities may have been added because of restructuring or downsizing. There are a variety of public services tasks that technical services librarians or staff may be asked to perform, including scheduled times at the reference or circulation desks, bibliographic instruction, taking over subject specialist responsibilities, and so forth. In this E-forum, we want to discuss what kinds of public services responsibilities you perform, the training you received, how is that training refreshed (or are you kept “in the loop”), and how you balance these responsibilities with your technical services duties. We are very interested in success stories and tips we can share with each other.

Erin E. Boyd is the Cataloging/Reference Librarian at Troy University, Montgomery Campus.  In addition to cataloging, she provides reference services, serves as liaison for literature and fine arts, and develops LibGuides.  She is active in ALCTS serving as a member of the Continuing Education Committee, Co-Chair of the New Members Interest Group, and is ALCTS representative for the ALA Website Advisory Committee.  Her professional interests include long-distance collaboration, outreach, emerging technologies, and collection management.

Ruth Elder is the Cataloging Librarian at the Troy campus of Troy University. She has been a cataloger for almost 30 years. Each of her positions included technical services and public services responsibilities. Public services duties included circulation/reference desk duties, teaching bibliographic instruction, implementing a discovery service, automating a circulation department, and helping establish policies for public services. ALCTS involvement: Membership Committee, CaMMs Policy and Planning Committee, and RDA Programming and Planning Task Force.     

Laura Turner joined University of San Diego’s Copley Library in October 2012 as Head of Technical Services.  Previously, she served as Head of Technical Services at Washington and Lee University Library.  In addition to her technical services responsibilities, she helps lead library workshops to enhance information literacy, is a library liaison to the Music Department, and serves as a Personal Librarian for over 70 freshmen in the University’s Living Learning Community for new students.

*What is an e-forum?*

An ALCTS e-forum provides an opportunity for librarians to discuss matters of interest, led by a moderator, through the e-forum discussion list. The e-forum discussion list works like an email listserv: register your email address with the list, and then you will receive messages and communicate with other participants through an email discussion. Most e-forums last two to three days. Registration is necessary to participate, but it's free. See a list of upcoming e-forums at: http://bit.ly/upcomingeforum.

*To register:*

Instructions for registration are available at: http://bit.ly/eforuminfo. Once you have registered for one e-forum, you do not need to register again, unless you choose to leave the email list. Participation is free and open to anyone.

 

Posted on behalf of the ALCTS Continuing Education Committee