In summer 2017, the University of Birmingham reconfigured from a subject librarian model of academic library support to a functional or task-based model, including the creation of a dedicated Engagement Team. Using case studies from the new team, an internal survey of staff across the University alongside a survey of librarians from other…

Some of the most enduring, and engaging, questions within academic librarianship are those about students and research skills. The vocabulary employed for discussion has evolved, but essential questions--what skills do students need to be taught, who should teach them, and how?--have persisted from the nineteenth century into the twenty-first.…