Empowering Negotiations: Using Communication for Decision-Making and Outreach

The literature on negotiation for librarians focuses largely on electronic resource licensing and agreements, as well as salary and benefits negotiation during the hiring or promotion process. What about the everyday negotiations centered on conversations about library services with faculty and administrators? How can librarians engage in meaningful ways, while also asserting themselves and sharing in the decision-making process? This presentation addresses how librarians can use negotiation skills to empower themselves, as well as highlight their expertise, enhance student learning, and raise awareness of library services. The negotiation techniques and outcomes presented provide participants with strategies, talking points and authentic examples for consideration. Through introduction to various scenarios on topics such as instruction requests, course reserves, collections, and scholarly communications, participants will consider how they might handle different situations. By repositioning one’s view on their own knowledge, expertise and experience, librarians can strategically strengthen their sense of authority, drive student learning, and foster engagement. Many young librarians, in particular, may not understand their ability to ask questions, promote their expertise to faculty or, occasionally, how to say ‘no.’ This poster will motivate librarians to find their voice to begin negotiating and sharing in decision making processes. Using four classic articles from Harvard Business Review, this presentation demonstrates how librarians can use negotiation strategies and theory to drive engagement with faculty, develop internal workflows, and initiate long term strategic programming.