Library Representatives - Roles & Responsibilities

Thank you for agreeing to be a Library representative (Library rep) for your area! If you haven’t already reached out to them, please contact your liaison librarian and let them know that you have been appointed for your area.

What does a Library Representative do?

Library reps provide important channels of communication between your faculty/department/area and the Library. Maintaining open communication allows your area to convey its needs to the Library while remaining informed concerning changes to the Library's collections, programming, and services.

This communication between your area and the Library is critical to maintaining the Library’s relevance and to all of our campus stakeholders.

The Library holds meetings between Library reps, librarians, and the GFC Library Committee members. Your representation at these meetings and your ongoing communication with your liaison librarian is extremely valuable.

Collection Development - Recommending & Suggesting New Resources

Your liaison librarian is happy to receive recommendations for new acquisitions from you and your colleagues, as they are very informative in the Library's efforts to develop a balanced collection. You can see our Collection Guidelines here. If you haven’t been already, you may be set up to receive targeted notifications from GOBI (our print & e-book ordering system) of new publications relevant to your area, through which you may recommend titles directly. We also welcome suggestions found elsewhere. You may also recommend subscriptions to journals or databases, in which case your liaison librarian will relay the request to the Library's Collections Work Team. Good communication between you and your liaison librarian helps to ensure that the Library provides access to the most important titles for teaching, learning, and research in your field, while balancing needs across the university. The Library regularly gathers and reviews usage statistics to ensure that limited collections budgets are spent in the way that best meets our university community's needs.

For more information about the full range of resources and services available to you as academic staff members, please see our faculty handout.

Thank you again for your service to the Library, and if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.