Behind the job title: university librarian

I have been a university librarian for 10 years and I still don't think academics and students fully understand my role. Students often think that I am there to give them the information they need. Instead my aim is to show them how they can get to the information themselves. To do this I meet students one-to-one with students in my faculty to teach them research methods when they are coming to do their dissertation or research project.

With academics, while I have to check reading lists to make sure that they are not recommending journals we don't subscribe to or that we can't afford, I also have a strategic role to play. I sit on the faculty quality committee and, a couple of times every month, I will meet with the academics and give my input to the overall working of the faculty: what resources are needed to ensure the university maintains its teaching and research excellence.

I don't however think the misconceptions are entirely the fault of students and teachers. In the past librarians have been very bad at promoting what they do but that's changing. I am quite proactive but there are librarians who expect that people should just know what they do but are then shocked when their jobs come under threat.

Last year I did a research project with the academics in my faculty to gauge what their view of my role was and then we worked together to think about how they can benefit from what I can offer because I don't just stamp books. It was an opportunity for two sometimes conflicting sides to learn from each other. They were able to appreciate what I can offer the course and I got to understand what pedagogies they use and see where I can make appropriate recommendations. Working closely with the academics is the first stage but my intention is then to engage with the students more through the student union and programme reps.

How I do my job has certainly changed in the past 10 years: it used to be that people needed introducing to the different types of resources they could use. Now it's about navigating through all the information available and trying to whittle it down to what is most applicable.

Students starting now are very confident with technology but they are not really savvy at using the information that's out there well. They think that if they can Google something and get 100,000 results that's brilliant. Whereas, academic research requires something different of them. When you tell an 18 year old that they can't use Wikipedia in an academic essay they look at you in shock and horror.

Rising tuition fees is another big change in the last few years. The institution I work for has not yet announced what it will be charging but given that most have gone to £9,000 or thereabouts, I can only assume that they will follow suit. The predicament is that students will arrive thinking they are entitled to more resources (and rightly so) but we will not actually have any more money to provide additional resources. They may be paying more but we won't see any more money in the library and I doubt the university as a whole will be better off because essentially they are charging these fees to make up for what they have lost through governmental funding cuts.

It used to be: "look at everything we can offer you." Now with high student expectations, I'll be saying "I know what I offer is not everything that's out there but that's just the way of the world I'm afraid." Working with tight budgets can be quite frustrating.

What it'll come down to is effective communication – not just between librarians and students but also between librarians and academics to set realistic expectations right from the very beginning. My job will be to tell students that while I cannot guarantee that they'll always get what they want, I will be working very closely with their tutors to make sure that the core texts are available.

Without effective communication, some institutions will just see the library as a repository for books or as a supermarket: they think if you put self-checkout machines that's an automatic librarian which, of course, it's not. Further down the line when the collections gone to pot and the machine can do nothing about it, the institution recognises that the librarian's job is more than just stamping books.

On a positive note, the rising cost of resources has led libraries to become more joined up. We have good relationships with other universities in the region and even in the country and our students can visit them and use their resources if they want to. Depending on their course, they may even be allowed to borrow those resources.

University libraries are also forming consortia that enable us to collectively bargain for cheaper books. I am hoping it will continue to online databases, e-journals and search tools where we can join up with other universities and help to provide a wider range. We have to pitch in together.

Bangor got rid of its subject librarians – completely, and a London university drastically reduced its library staff. We have to keep promoting what we are doing or else we are in danger.

The future is bright, however. I have been shortlisted for an information provider award and I get to present at my work at a conference this year. I love the job I do. I love working with the academics and making a difference to the students – hopefully giving them some lifelong skills to take with them when they leave academia.

That's the wonderful thing about being a librarian: we are part of the wider student experience and need be taken seriously.

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