1. Kinesiology & the Health Sciences Library: Building a New Relationship Jacqueline Freeman, MLIS & Whitney Townsend, MLIS Taubman Health Sciences Library, University of Michigan
Medicine
Dentistry
Pharmacology
Nursing
Public health
Social work
Athletics
Education
Business
Engineering
- Sudden Change (Jan –July 2016) -
Absorbing School of Kinesiology
Librarian departure
New librarian onboarding
The Environment
970 students - 4 undergrad degree programs
90 students - 4 graduate degree programs
35 faculty
Good Morning. I’m Jackie Freeman. My colleague, Whitney Townsend & I have been thinking about the steps involved in building a new relationship with a library partner.
Between January and July we found ourselves in a time of sudden change, which I’m certain you can all relate to:
We absorbed an entire School as a new partner.
The librarian who had acted as the liaison to the school departed for another career opportunity.
And we had the onboarding of a fresh off the presses librarian– ME.
The environment of the SOK is large and complex.
It is one of the largest schools on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan: there are 970 students in 4 undergraduate degree programs; 90 students in 4 graduate degree programs, 35 academic and clinical faculty.
The SOK has research and relationships that overlap with our traditional areas of focus in the health sciences, represented here in dark. In light blue are the new areas that our relationship with the SOK has brought us into. The number of relationships reflects what’s happening locally and internationally in research and education – the health sciences -- and health sciences librarianship as a consequence -- are increasingly multidisciplinary in scope

2. Leveraging our Expertise
Knowing our Partner
Acting on What We Learned
Identify key stakeholders & priorities
Met w/ deans, administrators; address curricular needs
Find out what already exists
Opportunities for curricular integration; mailing lists; campus news
Communicate out
Faculty meetings;
Describe how we can partner; Reassure about relationships & resources;
Share pool of common/unique collaborators
We started by working to know our partner better
1) We identified key stakeholders (everyone from deans to administrative assistants). This led to discoveries about their priorities and needs, particularly their interest in thinking strategically about their curricula and their plans for revision. We leveraged our expertise in an on-going project to map our integrated instruction across all of our health sciences disciplines in which we plot critical integration points against competencies defined within all health sciences schools and those defined by the ACRL Information Literacy Framework.
2) Find out what already exists: Where’s our starting point with this school? Where have we integrated in the past? With which faculty did the library already have a relationship? Reassured them that the were hearing their needs; we know some of their partners and bring our own partners to the relationship. We also got on their mailing lists and watched for news about the school and their faculty. We learned about their involvement in multidisciplinary campus-wide research initiatives.
3) Communicate out: They needed to hear from us too. We asked for time in their faculty meetings to describe how we’ve worked with other departments and how we might work with them. We learned about their interest in systematic reviews and collecting data in the field. These are areas where we can partner.

3. Our Next Steps… Build even stronger bridges between our teams
Medicine
Dentistry
Pharmacology
Nursing
Public health
Social work
Athletics
Education
Business
Engineering
Our Next Steps…
Build even stronger bridges between our teams
Meet with their key people - Deans to Admin Assts
Incorporate and adapt resources for new contexts
Immerse ourselves – read, read, read!
These are our next steps and they apply to any area where you and your library are interested in building relationships:
We will Build even stronger bridges between our teams:
In our case, Sport Management has broadened our scope and the resources needed by our patrons.
In order to support our Sports Management faculty and students, we identified the need to strengthen ties to our School of Business. This is again a reflection of the multidisciplinary scope of our profession.
Another step will be to continue to meet with their key people: Most of us recognize the deans as being important programmatically, but we can’t forget about the people who carry out the work – from and getting our library links on the school’s website to acting as important gatekeepers in channeling memos to faculty.
Incorporate and adapte existing resources for new contexts: We are thinking about how to use our global health disparities expertise for the projects and research that SOK faculty and students carry out in contexts outside the US.
And immersion
We are watching for their news & announcements about research initiatives, paying attention to topics in the news and trade journals, and customizing our teaching to apply topics that will engage student learners whenever we can. We can’t expect all the news to find us – we are seeking it out in multiple ways.
THANK YOU.