Business Research and Instruction Librarian University of Nevada, Reno
Professional associations and networks are a critical aspect of the library professional landscape. For academic and public librarians alike, they are the primary source of professional development materials, research outlets, and offer service opportunities crucial for tenure and promotion models. Due to the eclectic nature of business information and research, librarians of all sorts working in this specialty tend to depend upon their professional associations for support.
However, in the last two decades, national business librarian professional organizations have experienced sharp declines in membership, and subsequent serious budgetary issues. Given the vital role that these organizations play in professional development and connections, their survival is of vital interest for business librarians, whether academic, public, or otherwise. Within this context–crisis and decline at the national level–a number of business librarians have built discrete, regional professional organizations, which have only grown in number and membership in the last two decades. Intrigued by this grassroots effort, the authors sought to understand two questions:
Q1: How, and if so, why, do business librarians associate regionally? Q2: What prompts regional business librarian groups and why do regional groups exist in some places?
These questions led to 19 interviews with founders and long-time participants of regional groups. In this presentation, we will discuss common motivations for regional business group founders, share best practices of functions and formats of these groups, and develop an argument for why founding a group may personally benefit a business librarian.
Learning Objectives:
To discuss the common motivations for regional business group founders, and provide a rationale for their place in our professional landscape.
Share functions and formats of regional business groups, exploring whether there are best practices for creating and maintaining an organization.
Develop an argument for why a founding a group may personally benefit a business librarian, and begin research on the advantages they can provide to meet common job evaluation parameters.