Adding Libraries to the Equation: Mathematical Sciences’ Underutilization of Academic Librarians

Academic librarians do not engage with all disciplinary departments equally. Despite equal or even greater efforts, some departments are less responsive to librarian outreach. One such department is mathematics. To understand mathematics departments’ relationships with their academic librarians, three mathematics librarians created a 20-question survey that was disseminated to mathematics faculty, instructors, and instructional staff in the United States and Canada. Of the 188 survey participants, more than a third reported that they never engage with their librarians, approximately half only do so occasionally, and a mere eight percent of participants collaborated with librarians to provide information literacy instruction (IL) to their students. Participant responses revealed that mathematics faculty and instructors find librarian support unnecessary, often do not understand what librarians do or what services they offer and have limited time to include IL in course curricula. Participants also provided information about the resources they use for instruction, the university services and centers they use for their research, and the resources they would like to have in their library.