Figuring Embedded Librarianship: An Analysis of the Embedded Journalist Metaphor in the Professional Discourse

Abstract

In the wake of the COVID pandemic, many academic libraries sought virtual instruction options, like the embedded librarian model, bringing renewed interest to the topic. Debates defining embedded librarianship are plentiful and varied, but a review of the professional literature reveals a commonly used metaphor comparing embedded librarians to embedded journalists. This paper analyses the prevalence of that metaphor in the professional discourse through the lens of cognitive metaphor theory (CMT) to reveal the semantic and pragmatic implications of its use. CMT highlights the power of figurative language to reflect and define professional identities. The metaphor’s militaristic rhetoric counters negative stereotypes of librarians as passive or meek, while the metaphor’s combative rhetoric discloses complex power dynamics between academic librarians and faculty. However, the etymology of ‘embed’ reveals more productive definitions related to geology, computer science, and linguistics. Embracing these multiple definitions will help librarians shape that role in the future.

Keywords:

• Cognitive metaphor theory
• embedded librarianship
• metaphors
• professional discourse

Notes

1 The review of the literature was complicated by the fact that, as Drewes and Hoffman (2010) claim, embedded librarianship “is a relatively new term but an old concept” (p. 81), meaning that not all the literature related to embedded librarianship uses that exact term. Some trace the origins to 19^th century branch libraries (Drewes & Hoffman, 2010) while others connect embedded librarianship to clinical librarianship in the healthcare field (Kesselman & Watstein, 2009; Shumaker, 2012). Since this analysis was interested specifically in the journalist metaphor, the author focused only on works using variations of “embedded librarian” or “embedded librarianship.”