The YUL liaison librarians are subject specialists who work with an academic unit to ensure that the library-related needs of the unit’s faculty members and graduate students (centering on research, teaching and collections) are addressed.
How do they do this? Here’s one librarian’s approach:
Subject Specialist: Rob van der Bliek, Music Librarian and Liaison Librarian for Music and for Sound Recordings.
Vital Statistics: Rob has Master’s degrees in Musicology and Library Science and his research is concentrated on North American music including jazz, blues and popular music.
Rob’s publications and presentations include a book on Thelonious Monk, colloquia presentations including papers on Jimi Hendrix, and various guest lectures.
Support for Faculty Research
Collections
I pursue specific collection directions or enhancement in response to faculty requests. Faculty and graduate students can have a significant say in how the collection is developed, depending on their research interests. Suggestions for additions to the collection from undergraduates are also very interesting: often they suggest edgy, up and coming artists like Animal Collective, Satanicpornocultshop, and godspeed you! black emperor.
I also fill unique requests, In such cases I can negotiate directly between the provider/author and the faculty member to obtain the materials requested, and bypassing the larger, more rule-bound system which can be slower and less accommodating to unique requests. I have the expertise and connections to work around some of the anticipated problems, such as the difficulty in obtaining sound recordings from small labels and scores from small publishers
The music collection supports both the undergraduate and graduate curriculum, including larger courses such as Music and Society (for non-specialists). It can be challenging to support some of the larger courses adequately with multiple legal copies of music. The Music Department has found an innovative way of providing the required support by using custom textbooks which include a subscription to Napster.
eResources
The SMIL (Sound and Moving Image Library) website is a rich resource containing important information that faculty and students need to know about reserves, hours of operation, collection descriptions, subject guides, indexes and abstracts. I have prepared subject guides on jazz studies and a more general one on music. I also inform faculty about new eResources that they can use in their research or teaching, such as music streaming services.
Liaison with new faculty members
The Music Department Chair informs me about the new faculty joining the department. I meet with new faculty to show them the collections, set them up to use the Libraries, and ask them what they would like to see in the collection. I also show them how to use various audio visual resources which form part of SMIL collections, and give them an orientation to the resources and tools on the SMIL website, such as indexes.
Support for Teaching
There is a significant difference between teaching graduate students and teaching undergraduates about the use of library resources.
My aim is to get undergraduates interested in the collection by asking them what kinds of music they expect or do not expect to find in the collection. They are then pleasantly surprised when they find out that we have a lot of music that personally interests them - over 12,000 CDs available. It’s gratifying to watch them becoming engaged with the collection and begin exploring and expanding their musical tastes
Example: I do a presentation in Music 1200 (required of all first year students) geared toward an assignment. I point them to authoritative or important sources on the web and elsewhere and show how to use them in the assignment.
With graduate students the teaching and orientation is more concentrated on the critical evaluation of sources and resources.
Example: I co-teach the graduate Music course in research methods, and my lectures focus on a critical evaluation of resources,followed up with graded presentations by the students. We do comparative searches across indexes and critically evaluate the search results. We also look at dictionaries and encyclopedias, and explore issues of authority, voice, and historical context. Finally, we do some citation analysis, discovering how arguments are constructed using citations, how the literature is represented and transformed.
I am also an adjunct faculty member on selected graduate thesis committees by virtue of my own research in North American blues, jazz, pop music.
Keeping in the Loop
Music faculty know me, and they keep me informed about their needs and wants, either in informal conversation, by telephone or email. I am also in the Music department about twice weekly. Faculty often talk to me about their requirements when they drop by to place materials on reserve. I also post material to the department listservs as required.
Part of my responsibilities is to review new program and course proposals and indicate whether library resources are there to support the initiatives, and to contribute to academic program reviews as they concern the adequacy of library collections and resources. I participate in departmental planning sessions and retreats so that I keep up to date on academic planning directions and curriculum development. I also attend Faculty of Fine Arts council meetings.
Reserves is another important way for liaison librarians to be informed about what faculty need to use for their courses. Lists of items to go on reserve let us know what individuals are teaching and which resources are most important to their teaching activities. However, we don’t always have all the needed reserve materials on hand, so it’s critical to let me know, well before the start of the course, about items to be placed on reserve, especially if the list is to include examples which are not standard in music collections.
I would urge faculty to contact me (bliek@yorku.ca), especially when planning their upcoming courses, when they would like to see something added to the Music collection, or when they want me to do a class presentation or workshop on library research methods.
