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Lansing Community College Library

Reference & Instruction Guide: Liaisons

Policies, procedures, best practices and training guide, for reference and instruction services.

Library Liaisons Activities

LCC Library Liaison:

As subject or program liaison, Liaison Librarians are the main link between the library and academic programs. Liaison activities involve establishing a line of communication with faculty through e-mail, phone, or face-to-face meetings.  Liaisons become familiar with program curriculum and trends, plus develop & manage a collection of resources that fit the program needs.

Library Liaison Teams were established to develop a team-based approach to Liaison work.  This way a librarian does feel isolated and has others to talk about specific liaison work activities. 

Recommended that the Liaison Teams meet and the beginning & end of  each semester to create plans for next semester, review previous activities, or identify what next steps to take on projects.

Teams are asked to share happenings and activities that were successful or not at RST meetings.  Teams can also meeting with Reference Lead & Liaison Librarian to discuss unique issues .

Within the Liaison Teams, individual members may work with specific programs, review & development certain program library collections.  

Here are some recommendations on how to start our relationship with program faculty:

Before contacting your assigned academic department:

  • Review their campus webpage, specifically the degrees granted, classes offered, and contacts.
  • Become familiar with course descriptions / topics and syllabi for current courses offered from the program.
  • Relate course topics to Library resources in both print & eresources currently available.
  • Check to see if your area has gone through a Program Review, where the program trends are documented. 

Contacting department:

  • Initiate contact with program lead by possibly phone or email.  
  • Consider creating list of questions or resource sharing topics ahead of time to maximize time together.
  • Ask to attend a program meeting to get to know faculty in your area, listen to program issues, and to be considered to talk about library resources that relate to curriculum / assignment topics.
  • Once you get to know some of the faculty, you may want to meet individually regarding assignment research needs or library collection development needs.  This is a nice way to encourage Library Instruction and Library Collection Development services.
  • Share via campus email distribution lists to all full-time & part-time faculty / staff in your program any library news and resources that may be pertinent.

Share with library staff happenings in your liaison programs: 

  • Keeping library staff updated assists in providing reference / instruction services and other library services. 

When a liaison assignment is agreed to be changed:

Reference Lead & Liaison Librarian will notify:

  • Web Librarian to change pertinent web pages
  • Collection Management Librarian update
    • GOBI notifications
    • Call Number / Subject assignments
  • eResources Librarians to have online subscriptions by subjects updated for annual renewal

New Liaison:

  • Collaborate with former liaison, if possible, about outstanding activities and experiences.
  • Look for new GOBI notifications within a couple weeks. 

A list of tutors by discipline is available in the SharePoint Library Files > Reference > Liaisons > 

Quick Links & Docs

Further Readings