Extending the clan: Graduate assistantships in the reference department

Abstract

Reference librarians in today's academic libraries are typically confronted with a growing array of simultaneous demands. Strained financial resources, staffing shortages, the challenge of adding new services, the explosion of information, and the electronic revolution have complicated (and sometimes compromised) the delivery of quality services. In response to many universities' growing commitment to offer nontraditional degree programs, reference staff are also assuming more responsibility for night and weekend instruction.

Win‐win strategy for the employment of reference graduate assistants in academic libraries

“…A pilot project at the University for New Mexico Zimmerman Library employed non-LIS graduate students and showed that`g raduate students from diverse academic units can make valuable contributions to reference, information, and instructional services if they are carefully selected, adequately compensated, and conscientiously trained for prescribed duties'' (Stephenson and St Clair, 1996).…”

The librarian’s apprentice: reference graduate assistants

“…As stated earlier, there is little information about the use of graduate assistants in academic library reference departments. What does exist often reports on appointments at institutions that do not confer American Library Association (ALA)-accredited Master in Library and Information Science (MLIS) or equivalent degrees (Clark and Pepple, 1969;Evrard et al, 1974;Stephenson and St Clair, 1996). Additionally, these sources describe the programs at the preliminary stages and not after they have been in place for a few years.…”

“…Some of this information also is dated (Clark and Pepple, 1969;Evrard et al, 1974). Clark and Pepple (1969), Evrard et al (1974) and Stephenson and St Clair (1996) describe programs to employ graduate assistants in the reference departments at Ohio State University, Brown University, and the University of New Mexico, respectively. In each of these articles, the discussion includes the department to which the students are assigned, their purpose and types of assignments, requirements and selection, the number of hours of their appointments, their training and the benefits or expected benefits to the library.…”

Recruiting Non-MLIS Graduate Students to Academic Librarianship

“…While they do also use the experience to introduce Ph.D. students entering a difficult job market to consider academic librarianship as a career option, this aspect is of secondary concern. 7 These and other such programs are not primarily developed as recruitment to the profession opportunities.…”