Faculty Attitudes Toward Collaboration with Librarians

Introduction University libraries play a vital role in supporting their parent institutions to achieve their objectives effectively. Librarians and faculty members are both involved in teaching students how to make use of the information resources available in their campus library. Collaboration between faculty and librarians is essential to enhance students learning and research, and help them develop their information competencies. A key element of effective collaboration is knowledge of the attitudes of both groups. The literature provides a lot of studies that have been carried out on librarians' attitudes toward collaboration. However, few studies have been conducted on faculty attitudes toward collaboration with the librarians. Having more information about this issue would help us create better understanding of their partnership in supporting the library functions and activities. Hollander et al. (2004) concludes that, Librarians and teaching faculty have many mutual goals and concerns. Both want students to develop a greater understanding of and respect for books, journals, and other intellectual property. Both want to enhance student literacy, particularly information literacy, and help students become writers, problem solvers, critical thinkers, and self-directed, lifelong learners. Lastly, both want to build the social and learning community on campus. To best serve the needs of faculty, university librarians need to understand the opinions of these users. On the other hand, faculty members are expected to cooperate with the university librarians in different ways. They can help in selecting relevant information sources. Their opinions about the services provided to them and their students are also appreciated. Librarians and academics are becoming increasingly aware of the need to collaborate in various areas, such as information literacy, collection development and user services. A number of authors, (cf., for example, Knapp, 1956; Feldman and Sciammarella (2000), Rader (2001), Lippincott, 2002; Wijayasundara, 2008) stress the importance of collaboration between academics and librarians. On the other hand some authors give a negative picture on collaboration between both sides. Hardesty (1995) refers lack of faculty members' collaboration to their culture. He says, "faculty members who hold on to the values of faculty culture (a feeling of lack of time; emphasis on content, professional autonomy and academic freedom; de-emphasis on the applied and the process of learning; and resistance to change) are not interested in "bright ideas" from librarians about bibliographic instruction. " The findings of Christiansen, et al. (2004) confirmed the research done by librarians on the topic of librarian-faculty relations in that, "Librarian-faculty relations have long been a significant component of the profession of librarians. For faculty, however, librarian-faculty relations are of little or no concern. " There has been some controversy over whether faculty members perceive collaboration with librarians as necessary or not. The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of faculty members in Zarka Private University toward collaboration with the librarians working in their campus Library. It also intended to determine from the faculty's perspective whether they believe collaboration with the librarians is necessary, and with which areas and types of the library services. The overall profile of faculty members' attitudes toward collaborating with the university library would help in the construction of a clear and solid librarian-faculty partnership. Background This study was conducted with teaching faculty at Zarka Private University in Jordan. Zarka Private University (2009) is structured into eight faculties containing a total of 18 departments that are responsible for undergraduate teaching. The eight faculties are: Faculty of Science and Information Technology, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Faculty of Allied Medical Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Shari'a, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Law, and Faculty of Nursing. …