Retaining Intellectual Capital: Retired Faculty and Academic Libraries

Acknowledgements

This project was supported through a grant to the author from the University Research Council, Rutgers University, 2006–07. I thank my colleagues Kayo Denda and Myoung Wilson for their generous assistance with this project.

Karen A. Hartman is Social Sciences Librarian, Archibald S. Alexander Library, Rutgers University Libraries, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Submitted for review May 28, 2008; accepted for publication August 29, 2008.

Reference & User Services Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 384–390, 420 © 2009 American Library Association. All rights reserved. Permission granted to reproduce for nonprofit, educational use.

References and Notes

1. Federal Interagency Forum on Aging Related Statistics, Older Americans 2008: Key Indicators of Well-Being (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008), http://www.agingstats.gov/ agingstatsdotnet/Main_Site/Data/Data_2008.aspx (accessed April 4, 2008); William H. Frey, Mapping the Growth of Older America: Seniors and Boomers in the Early 21st Century (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, May 2007) (accessed Nov. 20, 2007).

2. Sierra Millman, “AAUP Study Examines Faculty Retirement,” Chronicle of Higher Education 53 (Mar. 23, 2007): A10.

3. Jon Marcus, “Oh, No—They Won’t Go,” Times Higher Education Supplement 1779 (Feb. 2, 2007): 10.

4. Ronald C. Jantz and Myoung C. Wilson, “Institutional Repositories: Faculty Deposits, Marketing, and the Reform of Scholarly Communication,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 34 (May 2008): 186.

5. Angela Baron and Michael Armstrong, Human Capital Management: Achieving Added Value through People (London; Philadelphia: Kogan Page, 2007): 6.

6. Janine Nahapiet and Sumantra Ghoshal, “Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage,” Academy of Management Review 23, no. 2 (1998): 245.

7. Some universities make the distinction between “retired” faculty and “emeritus” faculty, reserving the latter term for those individuals who have made a significant contribution to the university, usually defined in terms of length of service. Rutgers, for example, reserves the status of emeritus for those retired faculty who have been at the university for ten or more years. In this paper, however, I use the two terms interchangeably.

8. Judith A. Sugar, Keri Pruitt, Jaime L. Anstee, and Susan G. Harris, “Academic Administrators and Faculty Retirement in a New Era,” Educational Gerontology 31, no. 5 (2005): 405–18.

9. Lorraine T. Dorfman and Douglas C. Kolarik. “Leisure and the Retired Professor: Occupation Matters,” Educational Gerontology 31, no. 5 (2005): 343–61; Paul M. Roman and P. Taietz, “Organization Structure and Disengagement: The Emeritus Professor,” The Gerontologist 7, no. 3 (1967): 147–52; Alan R. Rowe, “Retired Academics and Research Activity,” Journal of Gerontology 31, no. 4 (1976): 456–61.

10. Lorraine T. Dorfman, The Sun Still Shone: Professors Talk about Retirement (Iowa City: Univ. of Iowa Pr., 1997); Lorraine T. Dorfman, “Still Working After Age 70: Older Professors in Academe,” Educational Gerontology 26, no. 8 (2000): 695–713; Lorraine T. Dorfman, “Stayers and Leavers: Professors in an Era of No Mandatory Retirement,” Educational Gerontology 28, no. 1 (2002): 15–33; Dorfman and Kolarik, “Leisure and the Retired Professor.”

11. Dorfman, The Sun Still Shone: Professors Talk about Retirement, 175.

12. See, for example, Libraries for the Future, “Lifelong Access Libraries” (accessed Nov. 30, 2007); Diantha Dow Schull, “A New Look at Lifelong Access,” American Libraries 36 (Sept. 2005): 42–44; Diane Nevill, “Directions and Connections for Boomers and Seniors,” Public Libraries 43 (Sept./Oct. 2004): 256–59; American Library Association, Office for Literacy and Outreach Services, “Services to Older Adults” (accessed Jan. 12, 2008); RUSA, “Guidelines for Library Services to Older Adults” (accessed Jan. 7, 2008).

13. The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Rutgers (originally named the Rutgers University Academy for Lifelong Learning) offers a range of noncredit continuing education courses to New Jersey residents over fifty years of age. These courses are taught by active or retired instructors from high schools and colleges, including Rutgers.

14. List of Association of Research Libraries member libraries.

15. The University of Michigan Library homepage lists “Retired Faculty and Staff” under the heading “Information for” (accessed Sept. 8, 2007).

16. Rutgers University Libraries’ emeriti page (accessed Aug. 15, 2008).

17. Jantz and Wilson, “Institutional Repositories: Faculty Deposits, Marketing, and the Reform of Scholarly Communication,” 193.

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