Leveraging Technology and Staffing in Developing a New Liaison Program

Abstract

With nearly all library resources and services delivered digitally, librarians working for the New York University Health Sciences Library struggled with maintaining awareness of changing user needs, understanding barriers faced in using library resources and services, and determining knowledge management challenges across the organization. A liaison program was created to provide opportunities for librarians to meaningfully engage with users. The program was directed toward a subset of high-priority user groups to provide focused engagement with these users. Responsibility for providing routine reference service was reduced for liaison librarians to provide maximum time to engage with their assigned user communities.

A new hat for librarians: providing REDCap support to establish the library as a central data hub

“…Likewise, both the REDCap administrator and DataCore agreed to refer REDCap users to the library should they require introductory REDCap support. The library holds a unique position in the medical center in that we have fostered data-specific relationships with a number of departments through our liaison program [ 9 ], making it an ideal platform for promoting REDCap training and support.…”