My job? I manage departmental liaisons. I try to equip them with the tools and knowledge to collect the right materials, answer the right reference questions, engage with faculty in instruction, effectively use technology – for the curriculum. I forecast, request, and oversee the budget – for the curriculum. Sometimes, these things also touch on faculty research or other college business, and like the folks who run the box office or advertising for Cirque, I trust – no, I encourage – that those things ultimately enhance the curriculum as well.

Do I think my whole organization understands this? Most of the time. Certainly they know that’s the official drumbeat. It gets hard when your job doesn’t touch the classroom directly, but only through the ripples extending from your activity. It also gets hard when you have to explain that there are some good activities which we can’t support, because personal research (or general bibliophilia) is not our primary mission.

Every library has a core constituency. The constituency may have multiple needs, but it’s our job to articulate an understanding of those needs as priorities. What I find difficult is imagining how libraries (or programs within libraries) continue to exist which don’t share in the constituency’s core mission.