Recruitment

NCSU Libraries Fellows Program Attracts and Develops New Librarians

By Anna Dahlstein, North Carolina State University

Launched in the fall of 1999, the North Carolina State University Libraries’ Fellows Program has offered six cohorts of new MLS and MIS graduates opportunities for rapid professional growth. At the same time, the program has formed a centerpiece in the Libraries’ strategy for recruiting highly talented entry-level librarians with the potential to compete and qualify for permanent positions at NCSU following their Fellows appointments.

The NCSU Libraries has managed to attract an increasingly competitive and diverse pool of top library and information school graduates with demonstrated potential for academic library careers in areas of acute shortage: science, engineering, and digital librarianship, as well as library management and administration. In 2003, 147 individuals from across the United States and Canada applied for the Fellows Program. Last year, the applicant pool had grown to 244.

It is easy to see why the two-year appointments are so highly coveted by graduate students with ambitious career plans. The program not only provides professional experience and mentoring in a "home department," but also allows each Fellow to spend twenty hours per week working on an innovative project of strategic importance to the library. (For examples of past and current Fellows projects, visit www.lib.ncsu.edu/fellows/projects.) What is more, each Fellow receives a highly competitive salary as well as a professional development stipend of up to $2,500 per year for conference attendance and continuing education/training.

Fellows have used this stipend to attend professional meetings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology and the Association of College and Research Libraries, and to obtain training in digital technologies such as Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and XML, to mention just a few examples.

Bonnie Tijerina, a current Fellow based in Collection Management, recently completed a project in the Research and Information Services Department that required working with many people both in and outside the library. She explained, "The success of the Business Information Network project depended on extensive collaboration with faculty and students at the College of Management and with librarians involved in reference, distance education, digital initiatives, and web development."

While former Fellows have gone on to pursue exciting careers in academic librarianship at other Association of Research Libraries (ARL) institutions such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Chicago, the University of Tennessee, and Texas A&M, no fewer than 13 of the 21 librarians who had completed the program by mid-2004 successfully applied for positions at NCSU—and 10 of them remain on staff. Overall, 95 percent of Fellows have been offered academic positions or have entered doctoral programs in the field.

Vice Provost and Director of Libraries Susan Nutter and Assistant Director for Organizational Design and Learning Wendy Scott designed the Fellows Program to allow the NCSU Libraries to recruit the best and brightest of new graduates. According to Scott, "We were frustrated at our inability to bring excellent new librarians into the organization unless they had very specific skills that happened to coincide with a vacancy. We had also heard library school graduates express frustration about their first placements: that too many academic library jobs required years of experience, that too many entry-level jobs were not challenging enough, and that once a first job was selected they were not able to move beyond that area of specialization."

All academic libraries are suffering the consequences of declining library school enrollment, competition from the private sector for information professionals, and the aging of the profession. Universities with a strong emphasis on science and engineering, such as NCSU, face an additional challenge, since competition for librarians with preparation in the sciences has always been especially keen. The Fellows Program seeks out candidates with relevant degrees, and also provides professional experience and training to new professionals who demonstrate an interest in and an aptitude for science librarianship.

A member of the Digital Library Federation, the NCSU Libraries is on the cutting-edge in terms of creating new digital services and collections, collaborating with faculty on online course development, and exploring alternate models for scholarly communication. Fellows are inevitably exposed to digital library issues and projects. Some have gone on to serve in positions such as Metadata Architect, Systems Librarian for Digital Projects, and Assistant Head for Digital Library Initiatives.

Current Fellow Steve McCann, who recently accepted a position as Digital Projects Librarian at the University of Montana’s Mansfield Library, credited his experience at the NCSU Libraries with preparing him well for that role: "I’ve learned that there’s a process to digital librarianship: it involves collaborating with colleagues, building collections, tweaking interfaces, and talking to users. I believe my time as a Fellow at NC State was instrumental in my being able to translate real experience into [this] exciting position."

A no less significant objective of the Fellows Program is to recruit librarians from underrepresented populations. In the past three years, 25 percent of Fellows appointments have been made to minority librarians, a very significant achievement given that minority librarians make up only 12 percent of the professional staff at ARL member institutions.

In July 2003, the NCSU Libraries conducted an assessment of the Fellows Program to gather feedback and plan for the next five years. Participants at the day-long retreat, which was facilitated by the nationally prominent library consultant Sheila Creth, included current and former Fellows as well as their supervisors. While librarians and administrators thought of several ways to enhance the Fellows experience, they all agreed on one point: the Fellows Program is vital to the NCSU Libraries, and it is here to stay.

Anna Dahlstein, the Librarian for External Relations at the NCSU Libraries, was a Fellow from 2002 to 2004. She holds an M.A. in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. NCSU Libraries, Campus Box 7111, Raleigh, NC 27695-7111; anna_dahlstein@ncsu.edu; (919) 513-0379.

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