Bridging the Divide: Collaborating Across Departments to Improve Communication and Collections

Flat budgets, rising subscription rates, and the need to communicate the (bad) news to librarians and faculty are part of the academic library landscape. Additionally, the University of Vermont recently implemented incentivebased budgeting, requiring financial transparency and demonstration of value to community stakeholders. Collaborative efforts between liaison librarians and collection management departments are increasingly necessary as libraries work to support research, teaching, and learning with fewer resources. This article will focus on the venues and the mechanisms that facilitate a culture of librarians sharing information across departments about financial realities within the libraries and the university to promote cooperative decision-making in challenging times. At the authors’ institution, the increased communication has resulted in:

• liaison librarians better understanding budget constraints, usage statistics, and collection challenges such as weeding for growth;
• collections/acquisitions librarians respecting their liaisons librarian colleagues’ subject expertise and relationship with faculty; and
• data-driven decision-making tempered by knowledge of disciplines and faculty needs.