Academic Liaison Programs & Services
Academic Liaison Programs & Services (ALPS) is a department within FSU Libraries that houses academic liaison librarians at both Strozier and Dirac Science Library. ALPS is responsible for providing academic liaison librarian services across FSU to all students and faculty, regardless of academic discipline or department affiliation. An academic liaison program, which is also commonly called a subject librarian program, is a service where your specific librarians are assigned to each academic department and provide specialized library services to that department. Think of it as having a personal research guide who specializes in your field of study.
What is a liaison librarian?
Instead of just having generalists or reference librarians at the desk or available for appointment, FSU Libraries has liaison librarians who focus on specific subjects like history, biology, psychology, or whatever your field is. Liaison librarians become deeply familiar with the resources, databases, journals, and research methods that are most important in your discipline. Liaison librarians can help you navigate the complex world of academic databases, find sources, identify key journals in your field, and even help you understand citation patterns and publishing trends in your discipline. They know which databases contain the most relevant materials for your specific research area and can teach you advanced search techniques you might not discover on your own.
Liaison librarians also provide services like research consultations where you can sit down one-on-one to discuss your thesis or dissertation research, help with systematic literature reviews, and guidance on managing citations and bibliographies. They also even teach specialized workshops on research methods or databases searching for your department.
The liaison aspect means they maintain ongoing relationships with faculty in your department, so they stay current with new courses, research trends, and emerging needs in your field. They’re essentially the bridge between the library’s vast resources and your specific academic community.
What’s new?
Earlier this year, the STEM team at the Dirac Science Library and the Social Science, Arts & Humanities team (SSAH) in Strozier Library were merged to form one administrative unit called ALPS. This was done to provide a more consistent user experience when engaging with liaison librarians as well as reduce redundancies in programs and services offered by both the STEM and SSAH teams. In this new model, humanities, STEM, social science, and data librarians collaborate to provide library research support that compliments the existing liaison model, where each academic department or college at FSU has a liaison librarian assigned to work with students and faculty in their subject.
Get in touch:
You can learn more about some of the programs and services that ALPS offers, in addition to more fantastic resources offered by other groups at FSU Libraries, by visiting the Research and Publish page on the FSU Libraries website. You can connect with your liaison librarian by going here.
Written by Renaine Julian.
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