Shifting sands: The jurisdiction of librarians in scholarly communication

Abstract

Librarians' expanding claim on tasks in the process of scholarship is the subject of this qualitative study by a participant observer and employee of a large, team-based academic research library. The grounded theory describes gendered strategies of inclusion, usurpation, demarcation and exclusion in use by librarians as they compete and collaborate for control over tasks with both faculty, publishers, computing and student service professionals, as well as other occupational groups within the library. These competitive and collaborative strategies result in the emergence of three distinct jurisdictional and career trajectories for librarians: professional librarians, information professionals, and instructional support technicians. Recommendations are made for furthering the professional project of librarians, include strengthening the certification of librarians at the Ph.D. level, recasting information literacy instruction as navigation instruction, developing a vision of knowledge management fitting to public sector values, and encouraging librarians to bring career staff into certified instructional technology support roles.