Lower Barriers in Social Contexts, or On Being An Interesting Human First

A while back I had an interesting conversation with a colleague on the origins of successful liaison outreach strategies. As several examples came to mind, we recognized a trend. Many of the most interesting collaborations seem to happen by accident. The librarian chatting with a faculty colleague before commencement. The liaison librarian who made new connections at a weekly departmental social hour. The librarian who connected with a faculty member outside his normal liaison duties based on a talk by the faculty member at a library-sponsored symposium.
It occurred to me that these informal social settings are an ideal setting for what Etienne Wenger describes as "one-on-one" and "immersion" "boundary encounters" (p.112 ff). To the faculty member from the departmental setting, there is no threat or explicit challenge to the departmental culture. The casual conversation may have nothing to do with teaching, with the university, or with any work-related topic. Perhaps the conversation is about children, the weather, local news, etc. The point is that the boundaries between two "communities of practice" are down. Too often, I fear, we librarians come blazing into a conversation on teaching and learning, with an immediate faculty response of "divert all energy to forward shields." If we begin a conversation with an apparent intent of infiltrating the departmental "teaching and learning regime" (Trowler) of the department, we should expect a hostile response. By contrast, in the informal social setting, we are hopefully an interesting life form worth learning more about, not a threat to the Federation (my recent DS9 binge is obviously warping my vocabulary).

As my co-worker and I continued the discussion, we reflected on the varied skills of our colleagues in these informal social settings. Several of them are not comfortable in these informal social settings. Heck, I'm not always comfortable in these settings. We realized, however, that it is part of our leadership roles to help make these connections.

We can help by playing the part of match maker, serving as the "weak link" in the network between our library colleagues and the faculty members we know through our various connections -- past or present faculty committees, community organizations, common hobbies, etc. This technique works particularly well in faculty-rich environments like the social hour before the start-of-semester all-faculty meeting, at the faculty dining center over the lunch hour, at athletic or arts events, etc.. By wrangling our faculty friends into conversations with the librarian assigned to their respective departments, we help our library colleagues "explore strange new worlds" of departmental culture.

Trowler, P. (2008). Cultures and change in higher education: Theories and practices. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press.