Resolved, Every Librarian a Subject Librarian: Implementing Subject Librarianship Across a Research Library

Many academic research librarians are specialists—catalogers, data curation librarians, electronic resources librarians—and working with students is considered to be a job for public service librarians. The University of Tennessee Libraries is expanding subject librarian responsibility across the Libraries, and research librarians who may have never worked in public services are assuming liaison and collection development roles. Steve Smith, Dean of Libraries, will share his model of learning, research, and collections (LRC) librarianship and explain his rationale for starting the University of Tennessee, Knoxville Libraries down this road. And how is that concept working for us? Hear from a couple of the librarians charged with implementing the vision: a technical services librarian given new LRC subject responsibility and the public service librarian assigned to get that new LRC subject librarian up to speed. We will discuss organizational and implementation challenges and share what we have learned about training and mentoring new subject librarians.