Last Friday, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a piece entitled “‘Embedded Librarian’ on Twitter Served as Information Concierge for Class”. While I’m always glad to see the wider world take notice of our efforts, I’m in sympathy with several comments that point out a few flaws in the article. I wonder, for example, why the librarian wasn’t more embedded in the class than she was — i.e. had a more active role and extensive relationship with instructor and students.
The article ends with the librarian’s question, “how can you scale this up?” which indeed is a critical question for any library/information manager.
I posted a couple thoughts as a comment to the article: first you look at redirecting librarians’ time from reference desk duty and other activities; and second you don’t have to scale up to every class — pick your spots.
Do you agree? What other ideas do you have for “scaling up”?
(Here’s a link to the Chronicle:
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The Embedded Librarians Café