Working together: a narrative inquiry study exploring ongoing collaborations between college librarians and faculty pairs.

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20324125

The purpose of this study was to understand how collaborations are developed and maintained between college librarian and faculty pairs. This study focused on the collaborations between five college librarian and faculty pairs who had worked together within 2 years prior to the study, in 2 community colleges, a 4-year state university, a 4-year STEM institution, and a private research university in the central New York region. The study explored the participants' collaborations on various activities including teaching information literacy classes and planning and managing events for the campus community. The main purpose of this study was to examine the specific elements that contributed to developing ongoing cross-departmental collaborations through narrative stories shared by the participants as they recounted meaningful collaborations with their collaborative partners. The study revealed the factors that influence ongoing collaborations between librarians and faculty include: (a) the culture of higher education, (b) perceptions of librarians and faculty, (c) learning by sharing knowledge and expertise, (d) perceived success. Keywords: librarians, faculty, collaborations, culture, learning, perceptions, narrative inquiry, cross-departmental