Background: There is a need to enhance and grow the library’s liaison services. While the library has librarian liaisons to the four medical colleges, these roles have traditionally acted in more of a support capacity. Services include performing orientation presentations, assisting the faculty with research, and some classroom involvement (when requested). This approach creates restrictions on the awareness of all of the services that the library can provide. To increase service offerings and enhance the liaison role, it is necessary to further engage with the individual colleges to allow the librarian to be more fully integrated into the college’s curriculum.
Description: The library supports four health sciences colleges and offers a liaison librarian to each. This program initially focuses on liaisons to the Colleges of Pharmacy and Nursing and Allied Health. Additionally, the Assistant Director wanted to offer the librarians ownership in the design and implementation of these programs. To improve the service offerings the librarians were each asked to perform literature searches to find examples of successful university liaison programs in their subject area. After compiling and reviewing this information, both librarians were then asked to create a plan and timeline for these programs which included SMART goals and established benchmarks. The liaison librarian to the College of Nursing chose to pursue a goal of becoming more embedded in the curriculum while the Pharmacy librarian chose to create a series of information literacy videos tailored to the College of Pharmacy.
Conclusion: It is expected that this program will allow the librarians to further engage with their respective colleges to enhance and grow the library liaison relationships.