Study 1: Assessing the Library Needs of Emeriti Faculty at Rutgers
Over the course of the 2006–07 academic year, a series of small group meetings were held with a total of a dozen professors emeriti and older, soon-to-be retired faculty. These meetings were led by the author and one other Rutgers librarian. Discussions were informal but followed a prepared set of questions. None of the participants saw any of the questions before the discussions began. The project adhered to institutional guidelines for human subjects research.
Among the participants were a current but retiring dean and a former dean. Care was taken that there were representatives from the natural and social sciences, the humanities, and several professional schools. Participation was limited to retired and retiring faculty still living in the university area who could easily travel to campus, where the group discussions were conducted. The discussions focused on how these retired faculty typically acquired necessary information for research and teaching during their active (that is, preretirement) years, whether they had received any information about library services once they had retired, and whether or how they were currently using library services. Participants were also introduced to the newly released institutional repository, a set of digital services that preserves the intellectual capital of the university, and asked if they would be interested in contributing to it.
At the time these discussions were held, library services for retired faculty were in transition at Rutgers, and there was some confusion about what library privileges were available to retired faculty. Emeriti retained all in-house library privileges, but remote Internet access to electronic resources was not available.
Results
The following issues arose in all discussions.
- Many but not all retired faculty continue to engage in intellectual and professional activities. This includes teaching short, noncredit courses, serving on dissertation committees, and traditional research and publication activity.
During my teaching years, we knew that the library was primarily for doing research. … Now (that I am retired) I still use the library quite a bit. … Occasionally I read a manuscript from a journal and then very often find it necessary to look up what else this author has done and certain related points. The other use now is I occasionally teach a (lifelong learning) course, and to prepare this course, I use the library.—Retired chemistry professor13
Since retiring, … I’ve been teaching in the summer session running elementary labs … at least half of them every year. So it’s a new bunch and an old bunch (of preparations) every year. I try to integrate it when I do the summer session. So (there is) a lot of Web stuff in that aspect of teaching. Also … textbooks and reference books were useful for background.—Retired astronomy and physics professor
What I really need and what interests me and I think what interests a lot of people who are involved is being able to get books. I am not involved in … research, I quit that a few years ago. I figured when I’m done, I’m done. But I continue to teach. I have to do a lot of background (reading) and what I need for that is books.—Retired Spanish and Portugese professor
Although this was not a representative sample of retired faculty at Rutgers, it is clear that the faculty I talked to were very similar in their continued engagement in professional activity to the few previous studies of retired faculty at other universities. The two deans I spoke with each estimated that about 20 percent of their retired faculty continued scholarly research well into retirement. It would also appear that a number of those who have remained in the Rutgers area continue to teach. The library is crucial for both of these activities.
- It was also clear that many emeriti professors saw retirement as an opportunity to pursue new intellectual interests that had not been part of their prior professional research careers.
On the research side, I’ve used (the library) mainly in history of science. I have sort of an avocational interest in the history of science and I am writing a long book that kind of reflects on all my work, so I’ve made more use of the history of science collection. And I anticipate in the next couple of months actually chasing journals I don’t have. … So I expect to increase my own searches and requests for help.—Retired psychology professor
I discovered I tend to use the library now depending on what course I’m teaching. … My academic training is in Latin American theater and Mexican literature and so on. … One of the nice things about (lifelong learning courses) is that you can teach whatever you want and you really can get into research interests that are not your professional research interests. And that’s tremendous fun. I have taught courses in T. S. Eliot poetry, the history of the development of comedy, things that I’ve been interested in for a long time, but they didn’t fit into what my department would be allowed to teach, and I have a chance to spread out and do these kinds of things.—Retired Spanish and Portugese professor
The continuation of library services should be particularly important for faculty developing new intellectual interests because they would not have a storehouse of knowledge and expertise and books and journals of their own to rely upon. Retired faculty can develop new interests and set new goals for themselves, but they pursue those goals and interests with tried-and-true methods—and these often involve gathering information from library resources.
- One of the biggest problems retired faculty experienced was the inability to access electronic resources remotely. The participants were unanimous in recommending that these privileges should be extended to emeriti professors.
It’s a question for definition I think, as for what you can provide and what you want to provide and what your constituency is, but I think it’s relatively easy to talk about us who can come (to the library itself) real easily, but there are people who can’t and still are not dead from the neck up. And still maintain and hold interests and are generating new interests.—Retired astronomy and physics professor
There are a lot of people who are very active still and having availability through the Internet or whatever or however would be enormously important to them.—Retired management and labor relations professor
The university is looking for incentives for the faculty to retire. Continuing library services could be used as an inducement for the retirement package. … Priority one should be access to electronic journals. … Library services should be incorporated in the larger context of benefits for retirees. The off-site access to electronic resources could be offered as a subscription for a nominal fee.—Former engineering dean
(I have) a couple of comments (about) the journals which are now only available online. There are more and more of them. … I heard somewhere that these are available on computers on campus or on the home computers for people who have a Rutgers account. I was curious and tried to get something from my home computer, somehow I couldn’t get it. So that’s something to respond to.—Retired chemistry professor
- It became obvious that none of the participants were clear about how or if their library privileges changed as a function of retirement. They all recommended that policies and the service range for retired faculty had to be clarified and more clearly communicated. Several respondents felt that there was a need for a comprehensive website with this information, analogous to the alumni page on the Rutgers library website. Coordination of information provided by university human resources vis-àvis the libraries regarding retirement was also deemed desirable.
I would say … that the libraries could do with a little publicity. I was on the Rutgers library site and I see they’ve got something for alumni. Nothing that I saw for retirees … nothing to tell them what they could do. … I think the suggestion that if there were some document that said, here are the resources, here’s what you have access to, and here’s what you might have access to if you wanted to pay for it, I think that would be extrememly helpful. One way you could do that besides putting some kind of link on your website would be the (human resources) people who hold the retiree orientation sessions.—Retired astronomy and physics professor
Each of us has been dealing with it hit or miss depending on who he or she knew. I think some kind of centralized (resource) availablility would be marvelous.—Retired chemistry professor, after saying he still relies on help from the longtime library liaison to his former department