Evolving academic library specialties

Abstract

The purpose of this review is to examine the shaping of librarianship in the academic context through the literature of career specialties, with Abbott's (1988) system of professions providing an analytic framework. The specialties investigated are systems librarian, electronic resource librarian, digital librarian, institutional repository manager, clinical librarian and informationist, digital curator/research data manager, teaching librarian/ information literacy educator, and information and knowledge manager. Piecemeal literature based on job advertisements, surveys, and individual case studies is consolidated to offer a novel perspective on the evolution of the profession. The resilience of the profession's core jurisdiction is apparent despite pressures to erode it. Forays into teaching, and more recently into open access and data management, can be understood as responses to such pressure. The attractions but also the risks of embedded roles and overextended claims become apparent when comparing past and prospective specialties.

Occupational Sub-Cultures, Jurisdictional Struggle and Third Space: Theorising Professional Service Responses to Research Data Management

“…An on-going jurisdictional conflict between these two professions is already known from the literature (e.g. Cox and Corrall, 2013;O'Connor, 2009a;Ray, 2001;Danner, 1998;Van House and Sutton, 1996). In this particular case, the interviews suggested that the Library was indeed keen to extend its jurisdiction into RDM, more so than IT Services.…”

“…Most notably, this threat comes from Information Technology, digital information (both digitized and born-digital), and the Internet. It is argued that this has led to "a reinvention of the access role" -the core jurisdiction of librarianship for Abbott -potentially in competition with IT professionals because the Library has taken on the management of electronic content (Cox and Corrall, 2013).…”

“…This is our second potential framework for looking at responses to RDM. Abbott himself has written specifically about the information professions (1988; 1998) and others have used his theories, especially to examine librarianship's relationship to IT (Cox and Corrall, 2013;O'Connor, 2009a;Ray, 2001;Danner, 1998;Van House and Sutton, 1996). According to Abbott, professions are in constant competition with one another because the environment in which they operate is continuously changing, e.g.…”

Research data management and libraries: Current activities and future priorities

“…An Abbottonian perspective (Abbott, 1988) on professional roles sees work as a competitive space where professions compete for "jurisdiction" over different types of work (Cox and Corrall, 2013). It could be argued that librarianship as an internally well-organised profession (for example, with strong professional identity and knowledge networks) has the ability to out-manoeuvre less-organised professions (such as research administration) or smaller professions (particularly archives and records management) however relevant their professional knowledge.…”

Approaches to Copyright Education for Faculty in Canada

“…In recent years this role has become more formalized with the establishment of copyright offices and the increasing number of librarian positions addressing copyright, such as copyright officers, copyright librarians, and scholarly communication librarians (Patterson, 2016, p. 3-4;Graham & Winter, 2016;Kawooya, Veverka, & Lipinski, 2015). Librarians have also taken on an increasing instructional role in relation to information literacy (see for example Julien, Tan, & Merillat, 2013, p. 82;andCox &Corrall, 2013, p. 1534), of which copyright forms a part, and thus education is often a central focus of these new copyright offices and positions.…”