The (In)visibility of Academic Librarians in the Cyclical Program Review Process: A Corpus-Based Study of Two Ontario Universities

Abstract

The library is often referred to as the heart of a university, but numerous studies reveal that librarians perceive that they are sidelined in the academic program review process, even though library resources and services would seem to be important to program quality. Using a corpus-based approach, we investigate six documents associated with the program review process for 10 graduate programs at two Ontario universities. These more objective results confirm the perception-based findings of other studies and lead us to consider what is at the root of the problem: is it a gap between faculty and librarians or could it be a more general disengagement of faculty with quality assurance processes in higher education? We end with some recommendations for ways in which librarians can become more meaningfully involved in academic program review.