In order for the Libraries to provide the resources and services that you and your students need, it is crucial that librarians be knowledgeable about the courses being offered in York programs and about the research that you and your graduate students are conducting. At the same time, you need to hear from librarians about new research tools, major new library acquisitions, and the new services that changing technology allows.

There are many easy ways for you or your department to ensure that your liaison librarian is "in the loop." Many departments include their liaison librarian in their local listserv or distribution list. Librarians often attend (and we welcome invitations!) departmental and faculty council meetings where they can share library developments and hear concerns specific to particular faculty groups -- currently, one faculty council is even chaired by a librarian. A number also regularly attend departmental research seminars so that they can keep abreast of current research activity. Some departments routinely invite their librarian to departmental social events, a pleasant way for us to form useful acquaintances with faculty and graduate students. Some librarians keep a regular office hour in department locations so that faculty members and graduate students can meet with them more easily. Librarians are ready to work with faculty from their arrival at York: we provide individualized library orientations to new faculty members upon request. And they do so to the time faculty retire: we are pleased to advise on and facilitate potential donations of books or archival materials from faculty members.

One very important responsibility of your liaison librarian is to build a library collection appropriate to your teaching and research needs. The better we know you and your research and teaching interests, the better we can keep our eyes open for relevant books, journals, or other library materials. We seek out your suggestions and try hard to satisfy your requests for particular titles. When major new items arrive, librarians try to alert likely interested faculty, and the Libraries are currently looking into ways that new acquisitions might be highlighted automatically on our website. Some librarians already alert faculty to new full-text electronic journal titles in their areas as these become available at York. Where we cannot obtain a given item for our holdings, we have a strong interlibrary loan service, and our Resource Sharing unit can advise you on the possibility of obtaining from elsewhere particular titles or collections.

The Libraries not only purchase or license resources; we also assist researchers in using them. We have provided training workshops for faculty members and graduate students on using such library research resources as Digital Dissertations, WorldCat, Web of Science, SciFinder Scholar, or EndNote. Upon request, librarians provide individual research consultations with faculty and graduate students whereby they can suggest sources and tools that researchers may not have thought of. Our librarian specialists in maps, data, government publications, and business resources are pleased to provide individual consultations on accessing and using effectively such specialized research materials as statistical and geospatial data, or government and business information.

Librarians also strive to assist faculty members in their teaching role. Through the Centre for the Support of Teaching (CST), librarians have offered seminars for course instructors and TAs on such information literacy themes as academic integrity and teaching the "Google generation." Librarians also contribute to the New Faculty Teaching at York (NFTY) program and the annual Course Design Institute. As well, they collaborate with the Centre for Academic Writing (CAW) and the CST to develop instructional resources that you can use with your students (e.g. http://www.yorku.ca/tutorial/).

Librarians help individual course instructors in a number of ways. We provide advice on devising course assignments that that take into account the availability or accessibility of suitable library resources. Our film librarian can recommend excellent videos suitable for your courses. As well, our archivists can provide consultation on archival fonds around which graduate MRP/thesis topics might be developed and can even suggest locally-held fonds that may provide manageable and suitable material for undergraduate course assignments. Upon request, librarians and archivists will set up and explain for your classes displays of maps, rare books, archival materials, or other specialized resources. They have also prepared webpages for particular courses noting key reference tools (online or print) and valuable websites, and giving research tips relevant to the course assignments. One of the Libraries' most popular services, of course, has been our provision of tailored library/Internet research and information literacy instruction for classes or for groups of graduate students: see the other articles in this newsletter for more information. We would be pleased to hear from you about other ways in which we might work with you to help you carry on your research and teaching activities.

Please see -- and even bookmark -- our webpage for faculty and graduate students, with links to many of the services mentioned in this article.

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