Library liaison with social scientists: relationships in a university context

Abstract

A reassessment of the basic relationships between the university librarian and the library's users with particular reference to the social sciences. The interplay of the librarian's attitude and the reader's motivation is examined against the background of subject specialization, with special attention paid to the problems of the undergraduate dissertation (an experiment involving individual as well as group instruction is described). Increasing interdisciplinarity is seen as posing problems for relations between the social scientist and the librarian. Examples are drawn from experiences at the University of Bradford.