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Lurking in the Library The University of Michigan Libraries are consistently ranked among the top-ten research libraries in North America by any measure-number of total books, number of books added annually, number of subscriptions received, and sizes of staff and budget. A considerable amount of financial and human effort is required to maintain this status in order to provide faculty and students with the information tools they need to continue their teaching and research excellence. In recent years the UM Libraries also have placed great emphasis on an important area that does not show up in national rankings: service. The UM Libraries are always looking to better serve the campus community's library and information needs. In the past few years this has lead to the creation of a number of new programs, including the Faculty Exploratory, the Knowledge Navigation Center, and the Scholarly Publishing Office. The most recent creation is the Field Librarian. The Field Librarian program, modeled on successful programs at Stanford, Virginia Tech, and Washington State Universities, is conceptually simple: remove the librarian from the library and instead place him or her within the academic department and among the faculty and students. Three Field Librarians were hired in the fall of 2001: Art and Design, Classical Studies, and Women's Studies. Although library-initiated, the program is a partnership between the UM Libraries and the academic programs: the Libraries administer the positions and pay salaries and benefits, and the academic units take an active role in the hiring process, provide office space for the new hires, and ultimately write the roles the librarians will play. As the Field Librarian for Classical Studies, I serve the Department of Classical Studies, the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology (IPCAA), and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. The goal is for the Field Librarian to respond to academic needs more quickly and more effectively than would a traditional subject specialist librarian. Thus, my position continues to evolve. For example, shortly after my arrival, I was closely involved with a faculty search and the graduate student recruiting weekend, offering tours of the library system and promoting our excellent collections and services. This fall I began teaching the Classical Studies Proseminar, which provides new graduate students instruction in library research methodology and an introduction to core academic topics and current faculty research interests. I have also begun reorganizing the Kelsey Museum library policies and procedures in order to build a collection that meets the needs of the Kelsey curators and IPCAA students. And, most importantly, every day students and faculty walk down the second floor of Angell Hall to ask me questions or to ask me to buy books for their research projects. In all other respects I am a traditional subject specialist librarian, from background to responsibilities. I hold an undergraduate degree from UCLA in English/Classics/Italian, and graduate degrees from Indiana University in Comparative Literature (with Greek and Latin minors), and in Library Science. I have worked in research libraries for sixteen years, and was previously the classics librarian at Indiana University (1993-1995) and Ohio State University (1996-2001). For my UM Libraries responsibilities, I serve a few hours a week on the Graduate Library reference desk and purchase materials for the Graduate Library collections, a function which has led to recent exciting trips to Germany, the former Soviet Union, and Romania to purchase classics and archaeology materials, and to establish book exchanges between the Graduate Library and academic institutes and museums abroad. I am pleased to have joined the University of Michigan faculty, excited about my new role on campus, and look forward to working with the students and faculty in the coming years.
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