ER&L Human TERMS of Engagement

Human TERMS of EngagementGaladriel [email protected]

AbstractOnly 19% of accredited LIS programs appear to have a course on ERM. Thus, for continued evolution of online resource management, we need to determine how to share our expertise. This presentation explores using TERMS and NASIG’s Core Competencies for staff development as well as teaching a library science course.

As the demand for convenient, accessible, and relevant information access rises while funding remains flat, it is critical that libraries have the skilled workforce necessary for the extreme stewardship required to manage online resources.

In this session, the presenter describes using the Techniques of Electronic Resource Management (TERMS) as a framework for developing an ERM Team and as a blueprint for teaching an online e-resource management course for University of Wisconsin – Madison SLIS.

Then the presenter will invite participants to discuss the future of e-resource management knowledge transfer and skill distribution by establishing partnerships with SLIS programs, establishing paid e-resource management fellowships, or...?

Part of the discussion includes the necessity of, and ideas for, practicing ERM librarians to work with library administrators not only to ensure adequate staffing for resource management, but also to encourage and support librarians who teach credit and continuing education courses in collection development and management for the evolution of skills in this core, but intensely complicated area of managing all library resources.

March 18, 2014This work is licensed by Galadriel Chilton under aCreative Commons Attribution- Non Commercial - Share Alike 4.0 International License .

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/





mailto:[email protected]


Image Speaking PointsIntroduction

As the demand for convenient, accessible, and relevant information access rises while funding remains flat, it is critical that libraries have the skilled workforce necessary for the extreme stewardship required to manage online resources.

So, in this session, I’ll be sharing how I’ve used Techniques of Electronic Resource Management (TERMS) as a framework for developing an ERM Team and as a blueprint for teaching an online e-resource management course for University of Wisconsin – Madison SLIS.

Then I’d like for us to talk about the future of e-resource management, knowledge transfer and skill distribution through means such as… establishing partnerships with SLIS programs, establishing paid e-resource management fellowships, systematic distribution/reskilling of ERM work amongst current library staff or...?

So, to get started, I’d like to share why this topic is of such an interest to me…

Not unlike most academic libraries, UConn spends 75% of their collections budget on electronic resources – e-books, databases, e-journal packages, etc.

When I came to UConn in Fall 2011, only 3.25 FTE worked on managing and acquiring e-resources.








Image Speaking PointsNow, as of January 2014, there is an official ERM Team that brings people working on acquisition and management of e-resources together, and there are 5.65 FTE managing and acquiring e-resources. It should be noted though, that everyone on the team has split responsibilities, such as 50% subject librarian/50% ERM; 20% IT/80% ERM. When the team was formed in July 2012, I was the only one with ERM experience. Now, with the newest team member, two of us have extensive experience wrangling e-resources.

The fall after the team was formed, I began teaching an online course for UW Madison’s School of Library and Information Studies: LIS755 Electronic Resource Management & Licensing.

As I was working to build a team and develop a course, the primary recurring question I had was:

How in the world do I teach e-resources when just one e-resource workflow or one day in the life this work is as chaotic, layered, and scattered as a Jackson Pollock painting?

Why in 2014 is e-resource management still a specialized skill set outside of the “collection development” responsibilities of a subject librarian at many libraries?

Why does “collection development” for non-ERM staff remain a term applied primarily to selecting and submitting orders for print and e-books?

But even a Pollock painting is encased by the parameters of a canvas so I decided to use the 6 TERMS and NASIG Core Competencies as frameworks for both team and course development.








Image Speaking PointsTeam Development: TERMS – reviewed one TERM per team meeting for six weeks

Teaching:

6 TERMS and my job description are among the first three course readings for LIS755 in Fall 2012 and 2013.

6 TERMS is the foundation and framework for the class for the subsequent 1-2 week modules for each of the TERMS: investigate, acquire, implement, evaluate, and review.

Team Development: NASIG Core competencies was used to see what skills people might have had that they didn’t necessarily associate with “ERM work.” Also used as part of justification for training and staff development requests (e.g. staff shadowing/job sharing with acquisitions staff, business/technical writing course, SQL/PHP for work in CORAL).

Teaching: One of the first-week course readings along with 6 TERMS and my job description.

The response?Team Development: from my perspective, it was good to use TERMS and the Core Competencies and I will be referring back to them during team retreats and ongoing team development. TERMS is especially good as a lighthouse for us to help highlight where we’ve made progress among the storms and to help show us further obstacles we need to overcome.

Excellent for communicating with library administrators.

Teaching: TERMS worked very well as a framework for the course; however, students were overwhelmed by the core competencies.








Image Speaking Points<QUOTE>

And this was a student taking an elective course dedicated to ERM when…

My colleague Chenwei Zhao and I looked at the course descriptions on websites for ALA accredited library science programs and also reviewed jobs ads posted on ALA job list, ERIL-L, and LIBLICENSE-L between September and December 2013

For course descriptions, we looked for courses with e-resource management in the title or description and we looked at collection development course descriptions to see if the description encompassed e-resources, e-journals/packages, e-books, etc.

For job ads, it was a small sample and short period of time: 21 ads posted between September and December 2013. This limited sample and time period give perspective, but I do think it would be important to review more ads








Image Speaking Pointsover a longer period of time for a clearer, more accurate picture.

Anecdotally, from talking with colleagues in the field, most perceive that the financial resources spent on e-resources and work to manage these collections continues to increase and that the human resources allocated are not adequate. Austin we have a problem.

So, if, as the core competencies note that e-resource librarian positions are not entry level and potential new librarians interested in e-resource management librarianship are overwhelmed by ERM near the end of their program, and yet we still have 75% percent of collections budgets going towards e-content….How are we expanding the pool of human resources that are willing and able to manage e-resources?

How do we grow the ERM skill set?

Not only to adequately staff current need, but also to continue to evolve are work and make sure that the pool of folks with a core job of ERM is a vibrant, growing one.

Well, what does the literature say about what we’re doing…

An ARL Library first posted a position relating to management of e-resources in 1990. So this work and e-resource management specific positions are not new.








Image Speaking Points

Anyone want to guess what year these two quotes were published?

Duranceau, E. F. (2002). Staffing for Electronic Resource Management: The Results of a Survey. Serials Review, 28(4), 316–320. doi:10.1016/S0098-7913(02)00224-1

So, this isn’t a new problem….

In fact it’s in middle school.

Let’s look at the results of the Ithaka survey results announced last week: “The Ithaka S+R Library Survey 2013 examines strategy and leadership issues through the eyes of academic library deans and directors. In fall 2013, we fielded the Library Survey to the dean or director of the general or principal library at each four-year college and university in the United States. The survey did not include community colleges. We received 499 responses, or a response rate of 33%.”

Results confirm that well over 50% of materials








Image Speaking Pointsbudgets are on electronic materials.Confirm the prevalence and focus on electronic.

And that if electronic collections work well, respondents would be happy to see print discarded.

As we know, that part about working well requires human power, and yet…

…the Ithaka survey questions related to functions of the library only focused on one part of e-resource acquisitions and management (licensing e-resources).








Image Speaking PointsSo, what do we do?

To encourage, support, and not overwhelm current colleagues and those new to the profession even if we ourselves are feeling rather overwhelmed.

It’s going to take all of us.

…and work to evolve ERM as a library competency rather than just the work of 1-2 people.

Make sure “e-resource manager” is “e-resource managers” – plural!

We need to work to eliminate – not just bridge - the delineation between print and electronic instead of an all-encompassing, robust collection development view in LIS courses *and* in the profession that has become our digital divide.

Because with < 60% of collection budgets going towards e-resources, the entirety of managing e-collections should be a core library function rather than a fragile, unsustainable add-on.








Image Speaking PointsWhen I think about e-resource management, scholarly communication, and now data management, and digital scholarship/humanities, it seems like you have many organizations with the old functions as part of a core structure and instead re-skilling/changing/transitioning the whole structure, little pieces of Legos are added around the edges. Now I love Legos, they are quite strong, and you can do a heck of a lot with them, but you can't continue adding around the edges without unfortunate consequences like divisions, chasms, and silos wreaking havoc amongst the human architecture of a library. Some ideas…

Establishing partnerships with SLIS programs, establishing paid e-resource management fellowships*

Practicing ERM librarians work with library administrators not only to ensure adequate staffing for resource management, but also,

Encourage and support librarians who teach credit and continuing education courses in collection development and management for the evolution of resource management skills.

Make sure that when it comes to strategic surveys of library functions that all pieces of resource management that require human resources are represented not just one segment such as licensing.

*However, librarians need to look at their own structure, their core functions, their staffing and reskill, reallocate human resources to match needs and not rely on LIS programs and new librarians to bear the yolk of evolving the library.

Those are just a couple of ideas…








Image Speaking PointsSo that one seed at a time, we end up with a whole library - instead of just one or two in the field – understanding the work and managing all of the libraries’ resources.

But what else can/should we do?

It’s time to start this conversation and then work towards change even if it is slow.

Thank you for attending this last session of they day, and I’d also like to give a shout-out of appreciation to my colleague Chenwei Zhao for her work with me on collecting information for this project and the Library Society of the World (LSW) for always being a great place to share thoughts, get feedback and incubate ideas. Without Chenwei and LSW this presentation wouldn’t exist.








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ER&L Human TERMS of Engagement

Education